Frida Richard

Biography

Frida Richard first drew breath in Vienna on 1 November 1873, when the city still belonged to the sprawling Austro-Hungarian mosaic. The camera soon discovered her: she bewitched early moviegoers as the imperious duchess in *Ihre Hoheit* (1914), stood amid dragons and treachery as Queen Ute in Fritz Lang’s *Die Nibelungen: Siegfried* (1924), and gave Henrik Ibsen’s restless heroine electric life in *Hedda Gabler* (1925). Off-screen, she shared her days—and her name—with fellow actor Fritz Richard. Her final curtain fell in Salzburg on 12 September 1946, but the flicker of her performances still lights up silent-film reels today.