Torben Meyer
Encyclopedia
Torben Emil Meyer was a Danish
character actor
who appeared in over 190 films in a 55-year career.
, Vor tids dame in 1912 and made twenty more before making Don Quixote in 1926. This movie achieved considerable international stature, and Meyer followed the migration of leading European actors to Hollywood the following year. His first American role was as a spy in the silent movie The Man Who Laughs
starring Conrad Veidt
in 1928. Meyer arrived just when the transition to sound was in progress. In contrast to many other European-born actors, his thick accent became an asset for him. He appeared uncredited in numerous movies throughout the 1930s and 1940s, almost always cast as a German
.
In 1930, Meyer received a small part in a Michael Curtiz
film A Soldier's Plaything
, and in 1932, Meyer appeared in two Swedish language
American films, Trådlöst och kärleksfullt and Halvvägs till Himlen. Later that year, he had a small part in Murders in the Rue Morgue
, based on the Edgar Allan Poe
short story which starring Bela Lugosi
.
Meyer had small parts as waiters in five different movies during 1932; in German émigré director Ernst Lubitsch
's film Broken Lullaby
starring Lionel Barrymore
, in George Cukor
's What Price Hollywood?
, where he plays a waiter in the famous Hollywood restaurant 'The Brown Derby', in Downstairs starring Paul Lukas
, in Mervyn LeRoy
's Big City Blues
starring Joan Blondell
and in The Match King
. Also that year, he had a small part in The Animal Kingdom starring Leslie Howard
.
Next Meyer went from waiter to butler in a number of films in the 1930s; The Crime of the Century
, John Ford
's The World Moves On
, Preview Murder Mystery starring Reginald Denny
, Piccadilly Jim
and The First Hundred Years
both starring Robert Montgomery
, and The King and the Chorus Girl starring Joan Blondell. However, he was again cast as a waiter in Reunion in Vienna
starring Lionel Barrymore, in The Good Fairy
starring Margaret Sullavan
, in Break of Hearts
starring Katharine Hepburn
and Charles Boyer
(in this one he was headwaiter at The Ritz
), in Two for Tonight
starring Bing Crosby
, in The Gay Deception
as a butler and in To Beat the Band.
In 1935, Meyer was strangled by Boris Karloff
's Frankenstein
in James Whale
's Bride of Frankenstein
. Two years later, in 1937, Meyer had a number of bit parts; as a servant in Tovarich
starring Claudette Colbert
, Charles Boyer and Basil Rathbone
, as Raymond Massey
's servant in The Prisoner of Zenda
starring Ronald Colman
in the title role and as Tyrone Power
's chauffeur in Sonja Henie
's Thin Ice
. In 1938 Meyer played a German Police Prefect in a Simon Templar
movie, The Saint in New York
, and the following year, he played a doorman in Topper Takes a Trip
starring Roland Young
and Billie Burke
. In 1939, Meyer had a bit part in Warner Bros.
anti-Nazi movie Nurse Edith Cavell
starring Anna Neagle
.
, Ruth Gordon
and Otto Kruger
, and later that year, featured in the Charlie Chaplin
movie, The Great Dictator
. He also appeared that year in Four Sons
starring Don Ameche
. He is seen in the beginning of the movie as a farmer driving a hay wagon from Nazi Germany
into Czechoslovakia
and then gives Don Ameche
's character a ride home. Later that year, he got to play 'Mr. Schmidt' in Preston Sturges
' Christmas in July
, his first film with the writer-director. Meyer become part of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors
, appearing in every American film written and directed by Sturges with the exception of The Great McGinty
. Evidently as a private joke, Sturges nearly always cast Meyer as a character named "Schultz", with conspicuous exceptions as playing Dr. Kluck in The Palm Beach Story
in 1942.
In 1942, at age 57, Meyer acted in one scene in the anti-Nazi movie Berlin Correspondent with Dana Andrews
, playing a restaurant manager who is harassing Virginia Gilmore
for her ration card. Next he had a small part as a Dutch banker in Casablanca
who is seated at a baccarat
table. His female friend (played by Trude Berliner
) wants to have a drink with Rick but is told no by Carl, the headwaiter (S.Z. Sakall
). Meyer is annoyed by this rebuff telling Carl, "Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam." He is informed that it wouldn't impress Rick, "the leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen" and "his father is the bellboy!"
In 1943, Meyer played a waiter again in RKO's spy thriller Journey into Fear starring Joseph Cotten
, Dolores del Río
and Orson Welles
. Next, he portrayed a gypsy in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
starring Bela Lugosi
and Lon Chaney Jr. in the title roles. This was followed with a bit role in Warner Bros.'s war drama Edge of Darkness
, starring Errol Flynn
and Ann Sheridan
, where he plays a clerk for Kaspar Torgerson (Charles Dingle
) in a Norwegian
cannery. Next he played Gottwald in the spy drama They Came to Blow Up America
starring George Sanders
and Ward Bond
.
The following year, Meyer, wearing a beard and mustache, played a sympathetic Swiss Red Cross representative named Karl Kappel in the 20th Century Fox
war drama of captured army pilots from the Doolittle Raid
over Tokyo
put on trial in Japan
called Purple Heart
starring Dana Andrews and Richard Conte
. After this, he played Dr. Dahlmeyer in The Great Moment
starring Joel McCrea
. Next he played Emil Rameau's butler in the musical Greenwich Village
starring Carmen Miranda
and Don Ameche. Meyer received a bit part as a hotel manager in Once Upon a Time
starring Cary Grant
. In Hotel Berlin
in 1945, which starred Helmut Dantine
and Peter Lorre
, Meyer plays a barber named Franz. Later that year he was a town official in the Fred Astaire
musical Yolanda and the Thief
.
After World War II
, Meyer continued to receive roles. In 1946, he played a Count in the Bob Hope
comedy Monsieur Beaucaire
. The following year, he received a small part in Millie's Daughter. Later that year, Meyer who once played a lowly waiter in the famed Los Angeles restaurant 'The Brown Derby
' back in 1932, now gets to play the head waiter there in Variety Girl
which had cameos from literally dozens of Hollywood stars. In 1949, he portrayed doctors in two movies; he had a small part as Doctor Shultz in the comedy The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend
starring Betty Grable
and a larger one as Doctor Hans Heinrich in the Bowery Boys
film Hold That Baby!
Later that year, Meyer played a captain of an ocean liner in the Bob Hope comedy The Great Lover
.
In 1951, Meyer played Donovan in Grounds for Marriage
starring Van Johnson
. Later that year, he got a part as an auto mechanic in Come Fill the Cup
starring James Cagney
. The next year, Meyer played the mayor of a small French town during World War I
in the John Ford
drama What Price Glory?
. Later in 1952, Meyer was a station master in The Merry Widow
starring Lana Turner. The next year, Meyer appeared in the musical Call Me Madam
starring Ethel Merman
and Donald O'Connor
. Next he portrayed another waiter in the Dean Martin
and Jerry Lewis
comedy The Caddy
, and appeared as a chef in another Martin and Lewis comedy the following year, Living It Up
.
Meyer appeared in the Bob Hope comedy Casanova's Big Night
which also starred Joan Fontaine
and John Carradine
in 1954, his fourth Bob Hope movie. Next, he got to play cards again, as he did in Casablanca, in Deep in My Heart starring José Ferrer
and Merle Oberon
. Meyer was out catching butterfly's in the Michael Curtiz comedy We're No Angels starring Humphrey Bogart
, Aldo Ray
and Peter Ustinov
. He played a scribe in the John Wayne
film The Conqueror
in 1956, and later he played a French waiter in the musical Anything Goes
starring Bing Crosby
and Donald O'Connor.
Meyer portrayed 'Gaston' in the sci-fly classic The Fly
starring Vincent Price
in 1958. Next he played Alex, the headwaiter at the Harmonica Club in The Matchmaker
starring Shirley Booth
, Anthony Perkins
and Shirley MacLaine
. The following year, he had the role of Hugo in The Earth is Mine starring Rock Hudson
and Claude Rains
, and in 1960 he appeared in the Elvis Presley
movie G.I. Blues
.
In the 1950s and 60s, Meyer made some guest appearances on TV shows such as I Dream of Jeannie
, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
and I Love Lucy
.
starring Spencer Tracy
, Burt Lancaster
, Richard Widmark
, Marlene Dietrich
, Maximilian Schell
, Judy Garland
and Montgomery Clift
, playing the guilt-ridden "Werner Lampe", one of the ex-Nazi judges on trial whose inability to explain his actions is one of the most powerful moments. Two years later, in 1963, he had a small uncredited role in what would be the last movie of his career, A New Kind of Love
.
Meyer died on 22 May 1975 of bronchial pneumonia
in Hollywood, California at the age of 90. He was cremated and his ashes are in the Chapel of the Pines Crematory
in Los Angeles.
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
who appeared in over 190 films in a 55-year career.
Early career
Meyer was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and began his career as a stage actor in Denmark. He appeared in his first silent movieSilent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
, Vor tids dame in 1912 and made twenty more before making Don Quixote in 1926. This movie achieved considerable international stature, and Meyer followed the migration of leading European actors to Hollywood the following year. His first American role was as a spy in the silent movie The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs is a novel by Victor Hugo, originally published in April 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. Also published under the title By Order of the King...
starring Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Man Who Laughs , The Thief of Bagdad and Casablanca...
in 1928. Meyer arrived just when the transition to sound was in progress. In contrast to many other European-born actors, his thick accent became an asset for him. He appeared uncredited in numerous movies throughout the 1930s and 1940s, almost always cast as a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
In 1930, Meyer received a small part in a Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
film A Soldier's Plaything
A Soldier's Plaything
A Soldier's Plaything is a 1930 drama film directed by Michael Curtiz. Warners filmed this simultaneously in 35mm, and in a widescreen process called Vitascope, but it is uncertain whether the Vitascope version was ever released.-Cast:...
, and in 1932, Meyer appeared in two Swedish language
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
American films, Trådlöst och kärleksfullt and Halvvägs till Himlen. Later that year, he had a small part in Murders in the Rue Morgue
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932 film)
Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 horror film, loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". Bela Lugosi portrays a lunatic scientist who abducts women and injects them with blood from his ill-tempered caged ape...
, based on the Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
short story which starring Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
.
Meyer had small parts as waiters in five different movies during 1932; in German émigré director Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
's film Broken Lullaby
Broken Lullaby
Broken Lullaby is an American drama film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda is based on the 1930 play L'homme que j'ai tué by Maurice Rostand and its 1931 English-language adaptation, The Man I Killed, by Reginald...
starring Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
, in George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
's What Price Hollywood?
What Price Hollywood?
What Price Hollywood? is a 1932 American drama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Gene Fowler, Rowland Brown, Ben Markson, and Jane Murfin is based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns.-Plot:...
, where he plays a waiter in the famous Hollywood restaurant 'The Brown Derby', in Downstairs starring Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
, in Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...
's Big City Blues
Big City Blues (1932 film)
Big City Blues is a 1932 Warner Bros. drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The story is based on the play by Ward Morehouse and the film stars Joan Blondell.-Plot:...
starring Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career...
and in The Match King
The Match King
The Match King is a 1932 film made by First National Pictures, directed by William Keighley and Howard Bretherton, and starring Warren William and Lili Damita. The film closely follows the rise and fall of Swedish safety match tycoon Ivar Kreuger.-Plot:...
. Also that year, he had a small part in The Animal Kingdom starring Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
.
Next Meyer went from waiter to butler in a number of films in the 1930s; The Crime of the Century
The Crime of the Century (1933 film)
The Crime of the Century is a thriller film directed by William Beaudine and featuring a star-studded cast including Jean Hersholt, Wynne Gibson, Stuart Erwin, Frances Dee, and David Landau.-Plot:...
, John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
's The World Moves On
The World Moves On
-Plot:The story opens 185 years ago when two families, cotton merchants in England and America, with branches in France and Prussia swear to stand by each other in a belief that a great business firmly established in four countries will be able to withstand even such another calamity as the...
, Preview Murder Mystery starring Reginald Denny
Reginald Denny (actor)
Reginald Denny was an English stage, film, and television actor. He was once an amateur boxing champion of Great Britain.-Acting career:...
, Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on February 24, 1917 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom in May 1918 by Herbert Jenkins, London...
and The First Hundred Years
The First Hundred Years
The First Hundred Years is the first ongoing TV soap opera in the United States that began as a daytime serial, airing on CBS from December 4, 1950 until June 27, 1952...
both starring Robert Montgomery
Robert Montgomery (actor)
Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...
, and The King and the Chorus Girl starring Joan Blondell. However, he was again cast as a waiter in Reunion in Vienna
Reunion in Vienna
Reunion in Vienna is a 1933 romantic drama produced and distributed by MGM. Sidney Franklin served as director. The film stars John Barrymore in a story taken from a stage play, Reunion in Vienna, by Robert Emmet Sherwood. -Cast:...
starring Lionel Barrymore, in The Good Fairy
The Good Fairy (film)
The Good Fairy is a 1935 romantic comedy film written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1930 play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár as translated and adapted by Jane Hinton, which was produced on Broadway in 1931...
starring Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
, in Break of Hearts
Break of Hearts
Break of Hearts is a 1935 RKO film starring Katharine Hepburn and Charles Boyer. The screenplay was written by the team of Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman, with Anthony Veiller, from a story by Lester Cohen, specifically for Hepburn....
starring Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
and Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
(in this one he was headwaiter at The Ritz
Ritz Hotel
The Ritz London is a luxury 5-star hotel located in Piccadilly and overlooking Green Park in London.- History :Swiss hotelier César Ritz, former manager of the Savoy Hotel, opened the hotel on 24 May 1906...
), in Two for Tonight
Two for Tonight
Two for Tonight is a 1935 musical comedy film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Frank Tuttle, produced by Douglas MacLean. The film stars Bing Crosby and Joan Bennett. The music is by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel.-Cast:...
starring Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, in The Gay Deception
The Gay Deception
The Gay Deception is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring Francis Lederer and Frances Dee. Writers Stephen Morehouse Avery and Don Hartman were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story.-Plot:...
as a butler and in To Beat the Band.
In 1935, Meyer was strangled by Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
's Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
in James Whale
James Whale
James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his work in the horror film genre, having directed such classics as Frankenstein , The Old Dark House , The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein...
's Bride of Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein is a 1935 American horror film, the first sequel to Frankenstein...
. Two years later, in 1937, Meyer had a number of bit parts; as a servant in Tovarich
Tovarich (film)
Tovarich is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Anatole Litvak, based on the 1935 play by Robert E. Sherwood, which in turn was based on the 1933 French play Tovaritsch by Jacques Deval. It was produced by Litvak through Warner Bros., with Robert Lord as associate producer and Hal B. Wallis...
starring Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
, Charles Boyer and Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
, as Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
's servant in The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film)
The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1937 black-and-white adventure film based on the Anthony Hope 1894 novel of the same name and the 1896 play. Of the many film adaptations, this is considered by many to be the definitive version....
starring Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
in the title role and as Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
's chauffeur in Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion and a six-time European Champion . Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater...
's Thin Ice
Thin Ice (1937 film)
Thin Ice is a United States comedy/romance film directed by Sidney Lanfield starring Tyrone Power and figure skater Sonja Henie.-Plot:...
. In 1938 Meyer played a German Police Prefect in a Simon Templar
Simon Templar
Simon Templar is a British fictional character known as The Saint featured in a long-running series of books by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris’s...
movie, The Saint in New York
The Saint in New York
The Saint in New York is a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris, first published in the United Kingdom by Hodder and Stoughton in 1935. It was published later that year in the United States by Doubleday...
, and the following year, he played a doorman in Topper Takes a Trip
Topper Takes a Trip
Topper Takes a Trip is a 1938 film sequel of Topper . Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke and Alan Mowbray reprised their roles from the earlier movie; only Cary Grant was missing . A ghost tries to reunite a couple who she had a hand in splitting up in the prior film...
starring Roland Young
Roland Young
Roland Young was an English actor.-Early life and career:Born in London, England, Young was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset and the University of London before being accepted into Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
and Billie Burke
Billie Burke
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live...
. In 1939, Meyer had a bit part in Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
anti-Nazi movie Nurse Edith Cavell
Nurse Edith Cavell
Nurse Edith Cavell is a 1939 American film directed by Herbert Wilcox.The film was nominated at the 1939 Oscars for Best Original Score.- Cast :*Anna Neagle as Nurse Edith Cavell*Edna May Oliver as Countess de Mavon*George Sanders as Capt. Heinrichs...
starring Anna Neagle
Anna Neagle
Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical Goodnight Vienna , again with Jack Buchanan. With this film Neagle became an overnight favourite...
.
Middle years
In 1940, Meyer had a small role in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet starring Edward G. RobinsonEdward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
, Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
and Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger was an American actor who began his career in 1915. His career was most prolific during the 1930s and 1940s.-Career:...
, and later that year, featured in the Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
movie, The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator is a comedy film by Charlie Chaplin released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was...
. He also appeared that year in Four Sons
Four Sons
Four Sons is a silent drama film directed and produced by John Ford and written for the screen by Philip Klein from a story by I. A. R. Wylie. It is one of only a handful of survivors out of the more than fifty silent films that Ford directed between 1917 and 1928. It starred Margaret Mann, James...
starring Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
. He is seen in the beginning of the movie as a farmer driving a hay wagon from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
into Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and then gives Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
's character a ride home. Later that year, he got to play 'Mr. Schmidt' in Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
' Christmas in July
Christmas in July (film)
Christmas in July is a 1940 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges based on his 1931 play A Cup of Coffee. It was Sturges' second film as writer-director, after The Great McGinty, and stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew....
, his first film with the writer-director. Meyer become part of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors
Preston Sturges Unofficial Stock Company Actors
Actors who frequently worked with film director Preston Sturges: !! Christmas in July !! The Lady Eve !! Sullivan's Travels !! The Palm Beach Story !! The Miracle of Morgan's Creek !! Hail the Conquering Hero !! The Great Moment !! The Sin of Harold Diddlebock !! Unfaithfully Yours !! The...
, appearing in every American film written and directed by Sturges with the exception of The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition...
. Evidently as a private joke, Sturges nearly always cast Meyer as a character named "Schultz", with conspicuous exceptions as playing Dr. Kluck in The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture for the...
in 1942.
In 1942, at age 57, Meyer acted in one scene in the anti-Nazi movie Berlin Correspondent with Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...
, playing a restaurant manager who is harassing Virginia Gilmore
Virginia Gilmore
Virginia Gilmore was an American film, stage, and television actress.-Biography:Virginia Gilmore was born as Sherman Virginia Poole in El Monte, California. Her father was a retired officer of the British Army. Gilmore began her stage career in San Francisco at the age of 15, but moved to Los...
for her ration card. Next he had a small part as a Dutch banker in Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
who is seated at a baccarat
Baccarat
Baccarat is a card game, played at casinos and by gamblers. It is believed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of King Charles VIII , and it is similar to Faro and Basset...
table. His female friend (played by Trude Berliner
Trude Berliner
Trude Berliner was a German actress. She was one of many Jewish actors and actresses that were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933....
) wants to have a drink with Rick but is told no by Carl, the headwaiter (S.Z. Sakall
S.Z. Sakall
Szőke Szakáll , known as S.Z. Sakall, was a Hungarian film character actor. He was in many films including In the Good Old Summertime, Lullaby of Broadway, Christmas in Connecticut and Casablanca in which he played Carl, the head waiter.Chubby-jowled Sakall played numerous supporting roles in...
). Meyer is annoyed by this rebuff telling Carl, "Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam." He is informed that it wouldn't impress Rick, "the leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen" and "his father is the bellboy!"
In 1943, Meyer played a waiter again in RKO's spy thriller Journey into Fear starring Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
, Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. Next, he portrayed a gypsy in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, released in 1943, is an American monster horror film produced by Universal Studios starring Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. This was the first of a series of "ensemble" monster films combining characters from several film...
starring Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
and Lon Chaney Jr. in the title roles. This was followed with a bit role in Warner Bros.'s war drama Edge of Darkness
Edge of Darkness
Edge of Darkness is a British television drama serial, produced by BBC Television in association with Lionheart Television International and originally broadcast in six fifty-five minute episodes in late 1985...
, starring Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
and Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
, where he plays a clerk for Kaspar Torgerson (Charles Dingle
Charles Dingle
Charles Dingle was an American stage and film actor.He was best-known for his role as Ben Hubbard in The Little Foxes and for his role as a senator in the film version of Call Me Madam...
) in a Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
cannery. Next he played Gottwald in the spy drama They Came to Blow Up America
They Came to Blow Up America
They Came to Blow Up America is a 1943 American war film drama based on Operation Pastorius, directed by Edward Ludwig. It stars George Sanders, Anna Sten and Ward Bond.-Plot:...
starring George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
and Ward Bond
Ward Bond
Wardell Edwin "Ward" Bond was an American film actor whose rugged appearance and easygoing charm were featured in over 200 movies and the television series Wagon Train.-Early life:...
.
The following year, Meyer, wearing a beard and mustache, played a sympathetic Swiss Red Cross representative named Karl Kappel in the 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
war drama of captured army pilots from the Doolittle Raid
Doolittle Raid
The Doolittle Raid, on 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese Home Islands during World War II. By demonstrating that Japan itself was vulnerable to American air attack, it provided a vital morale boost and opportunity for U.S. retaliation after the...
over Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
put on trial in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
called Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
starring Dana Andrews and Richard Conte
Richard Conte
Richard Conte was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films from the 1940s through 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow and The Godfather.-Life and career:...
. After this, he played Dr. Dahlmeyer in The Great Moment
The Great Moment (1944 film)
The Great Moment is a 1944 biographical film written and directed by Preston Sturges. Based on the book The Triumph Over Pain by René Fülöp-Miller, it tells the story of Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, a 19th century Boston dentist who discovered the use of ether as an anesthetic...
starring Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
. Next he played Emil Rameau's butler in the musical Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
starring Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...
and Don Ameche. Meyer received a bit part as a hotel manager in Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time (1944 film)
Once Upon a Time is a 1944 fantasy film. Cary Grant plays a conniving showman who needs money desperately to save his theater.-Plot:Jerry Flynn has to come up with $100,000 within a week to keep his theater...
starring Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
. In Hotel Berlin
Hotel Berlin
Hotel Berlin is a film set in Berlin near the close of the Second World War, made by Warner Brothers in late 1944 - early 1945. The film was released in March, 1945....
in 1945, which starred Helmut Dantine
Helmut Dantine
Helmut Dantine was a film actor remembered for playing many Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. The Vienna-born actor appeared uncredited in Casablanca early in his career .Dantine's father was the head of the Austrian railway system...
and Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
, Meyer plays a barber named Franz. Later that year he was a town official in the Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
musical Yolanda and the Thief
Yolanda and the Thief
Yolanda and the Thief is a 1945 MGM musical-comedy film set in a fictional Latin American country, and stars Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan, Ludwig Stossel and Mildred Natwick, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Arthur Freed...
.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Meyer continued to receive roles. In 1946, he played a Count in the Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
comedy Monsieur Beaucaire
Monsieur Beaucaire (1946 film)
Monsieur Beaucaire is a 1946 comedy film starring Bob Hope as the title character, the barber of King Louis XV of France. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington.-Cast:*Bob Hope as Monsieur Beaucaire*Joan Caulfield as Mimi...
. The following year, he received a small part in Millie's Daughter. Later that year, Meyer who once played a lowly waiter in the famed Los Angeles restaurant 'The Brown Derby
Brown Derby
The Brown Derby was the name of a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and most famous of these was shaped like a men's derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood....
' back in 1932, now gets to play the head waiter there in Variety Girl
Variety Girl
Variety Girl is an all-star movie musical produced by Paramount Pictures. Numerous Paramount contract players and directors make cameos or perform songs, with particularly large amounts of screen time featuring Bing Crosby...
which had cameos from literally dozens of Hollywood stars. In 1949, he portrayed doctors in two movies; he had a small part as Doctor Shultz in the comedy The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend
The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend
The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend is a 1949 romantic comedy Western film starring Betty Grable and featuring Cesar Romero and Rudy Vallee...
starring Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
and a larger one as Doctor Hans Heinrich in the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
film Hold That Baby!
Hold That Baby!
Hold That Baby! is a 1949 comedy film starring The Bowery Boys. The film was released on June 26, 1949 by Monogram Pictures and is the fourteenth film in the series.-Plot:...
Later that year, Meyer played a captain of an ocean liner in the Bob Hope comedy The Great Lover
The Great Lover (1949 film)
The Great Lover is a 1949 comedy film starring Bob Hope, Rhonda Fleming, and Roland Young. A scout leader takes his troop on an ocean cruise, pursues a beautiful duchess and is stalked by a murderer.-Cast:*Bob Hope as Freddie Hunter...
.
In 1951, Meyer played Donovan in Grounds for Marriage
Grounds for Marriage
Grounds for Marriage is a 1951 American romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. Written and produced by Samuel Marx, the film stars Van Johnson and Kathryn Grayson.-Plot:...
starring Van Johnson
Van Johnson
Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
. Later that year, he got a part as an auto mechanic in Come Fill the Cup
Come Fill the Cup
Come Fill the Cup is a 1951 film starring James Cagney and Gig Young. Cagney plays an alcoholic newspaperman. Cagney has the memorable line, "Don't you see? I am home," which he says in response to the query, "Why don't you go home?": once near the beginning when he's drinking; once at the end when...
starring James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
. The next year, Meyer played the mayor of a small French town during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in the John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
drama What Price Glory?
What Price Glory? (1952 film)
What Price Glory is a 1952 World War I film based on a 1924 play by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings, though it used virtually none of Anderson's dialogue. Originally intended as a musical, it was filmed as a straight comedy, directed by John Ford and released by 20th Century Fox on 22...
. Later in 1952, Meyer was a station master in The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
starring Lana Turner. The next year, Meyer appeared in the musical Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.A satire on politics and foreign affairs that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed...
starring Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
and Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
. Next he portrayed another waiter in the Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
and Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
comedy The Caddy
The Caddy
The Caddy is a 1953 American film starring the comedy team of Martin and Lewis. It was filmed from November 24, 1952 through February 23, 1953. It was released by Paramount Pictures on August 10, 1953...
, and appeared as a chef in another Martin and Lewis comedy the following year, Living It Up
Living It Up
Living It Up is a 1954 film comedy starring the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and released by Paramount Pictures.The film was directed by Norman Taurog and produced by Paul Jones. The screenplay by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson was based on the 1953 musical Hazel Flagg by Ben Hecht, in...
.
Meyer appeared in the Bob Hope comedy Casanova's Big Night
Casanova's Big Night
Casanova's Big Night is a comedy film starring Bob Hope and Joan Fontaine, which is a spoof of swashbuckling historical adventure films. It was directed by Norman Z. McLeod.Hope plays a man who impersonates Giacomo Casanova, the great lover...
which also starred Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
and John Carradine
John Carradine
John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
in 1954, his fourth Bob Hope movie. Next, he got to play cards again, as he did in Casablanca, in Deep in My Heart starring José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
and Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel...
. Meyer was out catching butterfly's in the Michael Curtiz comedy We're No Angels starring Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, Aldo Ray
Aldo Ray
Aldo Ray was an American actor.-Life and career:Ray was born in Pen Argyl, PA, to an Italian family of five brothers and one sister. His brother Mario lettered in football at USC in the years 1952-54...
and Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
. He played a scribe in the John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
film The Conqueror
The Conqueror (film)
The Conqueror is a 1956 CinemaScope epic film produced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne as the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Other performers included Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz. Directed by actor/director Dick Powell, the film was principally shot near St...
in 1956, and later he played a French waiter in the musical Anything Goes
Anything Goes (1956 film)
Anything Goes is a 1956 musical film adapted from the Cole Porter, Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse stage production of the same title. The book was drastically rewritten for the second film version, also by Paramount, released in 1956...
starring Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and Donald O'Connor.
Meyer portrayed 'Gaston' in the sci-fly classic The Fly
The Fly (1958 film)
The Fly is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film, directed by Kurt Neumann. The screenplay was written by James Clavell , from the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan...
starring Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
in 1958. Next he played Alex, the headwaiter at the Harmonica Club in The Matchmaker
The Matchmaker
The Matchmaker is a play by Thornton Wilder.The play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842...
starring Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
, Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
and Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
. The following year, he had the role of Hugo in The Earth is Mine starring Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
and Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, and in 1960 he appeared in the Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
movie G.I. Blues
G.I. Blues
G.I. Blues is a 1960 Elvis Presley musical motion picture played as a romantic comedy. It was filmed at Paramount's Hollywood studios, with some pre-production scenery shot on location in Germany before Presley's release from the army. The movie reached #2 on the Variety weekly national box office...
.
In the 1950s and 60s, Meyer made some guest appearances on TV shows such as I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is an American science fiction film, produced and directed by Irwin Allen, released by 20th Century Fox in 1961. The story was written by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett. Walter Pidgeon starred as Admiral Harriman Nelson, with Robert Sterling as Captain Lee Crane...
and I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
.
Later career and death
In 1961, at the age of 76, he got his best role in the classic Judgment at NurembergJudgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...
starring Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
, Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
, Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
and Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
, playing the guilt-ridden "Werner Lampe", one of the ex-Nazi judges on trial whose inability to explain his actions is one of the most powerful moments. Two years later, in 1963, he had a small uncredited role in what would be the last movie of his career, A New Kind of Love
A New Kind of Love
A New Kind of Love is a 1963 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.-Plot:A journalist mistakes a woman for a prostitute...
.
Meyer died on 22 May 1975 of bronchial pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
in Hollywood, California at the age of 90. He was cremated and his ashes are in the Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory is a crematory and columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina Street Los Angeles, California, in the historic West Adams District a short distance southwest of Downtown...
in Los Angeles.