Trivia

He emigrated together with Grete Freund to the USA in 1933.

Father of famed photographer Peter Basch.

When he didn't find the the working circumstances he was used to, he went to Paris via England and wrote scripts which weren't realized.

The Jewish Basch was forced into exile.

When the war broke out in Europe he went back to the USA again and inaugurated the restaurant "Grete's Viennese" in New York in 1940. When his plan to inaugurate a restaurant in Hollywood too failed he turned to the film business again. But the working system for American movies gave him problems - like for most of the film working emigrants. In the following years he impersonated many support roles in B movies.

After a transfusion with contaminated blood (hepatitis B) he died at the age of 58.

In the 20's he founded the film company "Kronen-Film GmbH" and together with his wife and actress Grete Freund the "Basch-Freund-Film, Berlin".

The actor and director Felix Basch took acting lessons at the Burgtheater and got his first theater engagement in the play "Wilhelm Tell" in 1904. After a tour through Russia in 1912 followed engagements at the Theater des Westens and at the Metropol-Theater.

Also in 1915 he shot his first movie as a director called "Der Herr Herr Baron" (15) and he soon became an experienced expert of his line. In the next years he concentrated on his work as a director, only sometimes he also appeared as an actor in his own movies or took part as an actor in movies of other directors.

His cousin was the famous tenor Richard Tauber.

Felix Basch made his film debut as an actor in 1913.

According to U.S. immigration entry records, he gained his American citizenship through his father.

In the 1920s, Basch was one of the most renowned directors of German silent film, working with almost all the stars of the era.

Against his parents' wishes, he learned the profession of actor at the Vienna Burgtheater - one of his teachers was Adolf von Sonnenthal - where he made his debut in 1904 as Rudenz in William Tell and was a member of the ensemble until 1912.

Like so many German emigrants, he was unable to gain a foothold in the USA in his former profession as an actor. He left his family and returned to Europe in 1937, where he attempted to write and direct screenplays in London and Paris. When he was unsuccessful there, Basch returned to his family in Los Angeles at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, where he earned his living from 1942 onward with small roles in American propaganda films.