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A veteran stage actor of German descent, in America from the early 1910s, Robert C. Fischer became one of Broadway's busiest supporting players in the first two decades of the 20th century. Between stage assignments, Fischer appeared in such silent films as the 1916 Dorothy Donnelly version of Madame X. (as Merivale) and the British-produced Sherlock Holmes (1922). Only occasional film appearances would follow until 1937, when the stocky, mustachioed character actor settled permanently in Hollywood after playing the opera director in the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy songfest Maytime. Fischer would continue to play German-accented supporting roles through the early '40s, including Von Schulenburg in the later vilified Mission to Moscow (1943).