Charles Ritz

Charles Ritz (left) with Ernest Hemingway on receiving a prize from the Fario Club

Charles C. Ritz (August 1, 1891 – July 11, 1976) was a French hotelier and fly fishing specialist.

Biography

Charles Ritz was the first of two sons^[1] born to French hotelier César Ritz (born 1850) and Marie-Louise Beck Ritz (born 1867, whose family also owned and ran a hotel in Menton).^[2]

He did not know his itinerant father well, and César died when Charles was sixteen.

Charles Ritz emigrated to the United States in 1916 where he became a soldier in the US Army. When the War ended, Ritz returned to the US, and soon spent considerable time mastering the art of fly-fishing in the American West. He married Elisabeth Pierce.

Ritz remarried in 1971 and retired from the hotel presidency in 1976, three months before his death.

He is buried in Père Lachaise alongside his first wife.

Career

Ritz returned to France in the 1930s. His experience with fly fishing made him one of the foremost specialists on the subject. He invented the parabolic fly-rod, which is still used, and which was commercially produced by ABU Garcia. He was a publicist for the High speed - high line style of fly casting (HSHL). He founded the "Fario Club",^[3] which was the most select fishing club in the world during the later part of the twentieth century.^[4]

Ritz spent several years assisting his mother to manage the Ritz Hotel, then assumed presidency of the empire in 1953, after she died.^[5] He attempted to introduce his progressive ideas when he opened le bar Vendôme and the l’Espadon restaurant but found himself hampered by the board of directors.

References

1. ^ Charles, born 1891, and René (1896-1918), who chose not to continue in the family hotel business
2. ^ Marie-Louise Ritz
3. ^ Official website of the International Fario Club
4. ^ FARIO.EV
5. ^ Official site of Ritz Hotel in Paris

• A fly fisher's life, Charles C. Ritz - Crown Publishers - Rev. and enl. ed edition (1973)
• Ritz, une histoire plus belle que la légende - Claude Roulet - Editions Quai Voltaire (1998)
• César Ritz, Paris: Hôtel Ritz (1938) - a biography of César Ritz written by his wife, Marie-Louise Beck

Persondata
Name	Ritz, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	July 11, 1976
Place of death