[1] Friedrich Zelnik was born into a Jewish family in Czernowitz, today in Ukraine, at the time the capital of the Duchy of Bukovina in the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

In 1918 he married a young Polish ballet dancer turned film actress named Lya Mara and promoted her to stardom by producing and directing movies for her.

Several of his collaborators, such as cameraman Frederik Fuglsang and production designer André Andrejew are perceived today as important artists of the German silent cinema.

Upon the introduction of sound film, Friedrich Zelnik became the first director in Europe to postsynchronize a movie, The Crimson Circle (1929), using the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process.

In 1930, Zelnik traveled to Hollywood, California and upon his return to Germany, directed his first full sound film, a new version of his silent success The Bohemian Dancer.