Richard Berczeller

Biography

Richard Berczeller starred as Lot in the 1922 silent film "Sodom und Gomorrha," directed by Kertesz Mihaly (Michael Curtiz). It was the only film in which Berczeller had a major part. He'd been working as an extra to make some money while attending medical school, and Curtiz--later famous as the director of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Casablanca"--spotted him and gave him the leading role. Berczeller completed medical school and entered practice in Austria, fleeing the Nazis, whose Gestapo had arrested him in 1938. Freed with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, he made his way west. In Paris, he was detained, along with hundreds of other refugees and housed in the open field of a football (soccer) stadium. It was a time of shortage for all, but amazingly, there was a surplus of tinned foie gras, and this was fed to the detainees morning, noon and night for several days. Berczeller later said he would never eat foie gras again. After coming to the United States in 1941, he earned his license to practice medicine and was a doctor in New York City for many years. His son Peter also became a doctor, specializing in endocrinology/metabolism, and internal medicine. Something of a Renaissance man, the elder Berczeller was an author as well as a physician. He wrote several pieces for The New Yorker (memoirs and short stories) and an autobiography, Displaced Doctor. The New Yorker selections were published in book form under the title A Trip into the Blue. Richard Berczeller died in 1994 at the age of 91.