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IMDbPro

Alexander Granach(1893-1945)

  • Actor
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank
Alexander Granach
Trailer for this classic comedy
Play trailer2:17
Ninotchka (1939)
2 Videos
17 Photos
Alexander Granach was born in the region of Galizia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Ukraine). Given the name Jessaja Szajko Gronish, he was one of a dozen children of a poor Jewish family eking out a living, first in a farming village, later in a series of small towns and cities. He began working early mornings as a baker in his father's poor bakery by the age of 6, had a rough and tumble youth with relatively little schooling in religious and secular Jewish schools. He ran away from home four times, according to his autobiographical novel, but, reunited with his family at the age of 14, saw his first theatrical production, a famous play in the Yiddish language. Granach was smitten by the stage and, determined to become an actor, ran away to Berlin in 1909. In Berlin, Granach worked as a journeyman baker, fell in with a group of Jewish socialist worker-intellectuals--recent immigrants from similar Eastern European backgrounds to his own. His beginning as an actor was in amateur Yiddish-speaking productions, but he was encouraged to learn German and aspire to a wider career and was accepted into the acting school of Max Reinhardt, Europe's leading theatrical figure. Although the beginning of his acting career was interrupted by his military service in World War I, and his time as a prisoner of war in Italy, after the war he rapidly established himself as a leading figure of the flourishing theater and film industry of the Weimar-era in post-war Germany. His most enduring success in German film was as "Knock," the weird real estate agent in "Nosferatu." His charisma is demonstrated in the early German "talkie," "Kameradschaft" (1931), directed by G.W. Pabst. Granach was a well-known figure in the lively political and artistic milieu of the 1920s and early '30s, a friend of leading writers, actors, and directors, and had to flee as soon as Hitler came to power in 1933-as both a Jew and a Leftist. He spent the next five years in exile in Poland and the Soviet Union, acting in films and plays, but was arrested by Stalin's minions in 1938 and was fortunate to be able to leave the USSR and then to get to the United States. He learned English, as he had once learned German, and got his chance to act in Hollywood and then on Broadway, joining the small army of Jewish and other escapees from Hitler's Europe. The role for which he is best known in America is that of Kopalsi in "Ninotchka," (1939) directed by Ernst Lubitsch, but his role as Gestapo Inspector Alois Gruber in "Hangmen Also Die!" (1943) should be better known. (The film was written, in part, by his old colleague, Bertolt Brecht and directed by Fritz Lang.) Granach was acting on Broadway with Frederic March in the play by John Hersey, "A Bell for Adano," when he had an attack of appendicitis and died several days later of an embolism, on March 13, 1945. Alexander Granach wrote an autobiographical novel, with the title Da geht ein Mensch, in German, which was published in 1945, just after his death. The book was published at the same time in an English version, as There Goes an Actor. It was recognized at the time as a remarkable work, and has been republished as: From the Shtetl to the Stage: the Odyssey of a Wandering Actor, by Transaction Publishers, 2010.
BornApril 18, 1893
DiedMarch 14, 1945(51)
BornApril 18, 1893
DiedMarch 14, 1945(51)
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank

Photos17

Greta Garbo, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, and Sig Ruman in Ninotchka (1939)
Alexander Granach in Crown of Thorns (1923)
Brian Donlevy and Alexander Granach in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
Alexander Granach and Edmund MacDonald in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
Alexander Granach in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
Alexander Granach in Voice in the Wind (1944)
Greta Garbo, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, and Sig Ruman in Ninotchka (1939)
Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Arturo de Córdova, Alexander Granach, Katina Paxinou, Mikhail Rasumny, Vladimir Sokoloff, and Akim Tamiroff in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Alexander Granach
Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, and Sig Ruman in Ninotchka (1939)
Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, and Sig Ruman in Ninotchka (1939)
Brian Donlevy, Alexander Granach, and Anna Lee in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

Known for

Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu
7.9
  • Knock - ein Häusermakler
  • 1922
Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka (1939)
Ninotchka
7.8
  • Kopalski
  • 1939
Brian Donlevy and Anna Lee in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
Hangmen Also Die!
7.4
  • Gestapo Insp. Alois Gruber
  • 1943
The Hitler Gang (1944)
The Hitler Gang
6.7
  • Julius Streicher
  • 1944

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actor

  • Don 'Red' Barry and Ruth Terry in My Buddy (1944)
    My Buddy
    • Tim Oberta
    • 1944
  • Spencer Tracy and Signe Hasso in The Seventh Cross (1944)
    The Seventh Cross
    • Zillich
    • 1944
  • The Hitler Gang (1944)
    The Hitler Gang
    • Julius Streicher
    • 1944
  • J. Edward Bromberg, Sigrid Gurie, and Francis Lederer in Voice in the Wind (1944)
    Voice in the Wind
    • Angelo
    • 1944
  • Mimi Forsythe, Kathy Frye, Kent Smith, and Anna Sten in Three Russian Girls (1943)
    Three Russian Girls
    • Major Braginski
    • 1943
  • Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
    For Whom the Bell Tolls
    • Paco
    • 1943
  • Mission to Moscow (1943)
    Mission to Moscow
    • Russian Air Force Officer (uncredited)
    • 1943
  • Brian Donlevy and Anna Lee in Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
    Hangmen Also Die!
    • Gestapo Insp. Alois Gruber
    • 1943
  • Richard Arlen, Chester Morris, and Jean Parker in Wrecking Crew (1942)
    Wrecking Crew
    • Joe Poska
    • 1942
  • Patricia Dane and William Lundigan in Northwest Rangers (1942)
    Northwest Rangers
    • Pierre - Man in Casino (uncredited)
    • 1942
  • J. Edward Bromberg, Irene Hervey, Henry Stephenson, and Kent Taylor in Halfway to Shanghai (1942)
    Halfway to Shanghai
    • Mr. Nikolas
    • 1942
  • Joe E. Brown and Judy Canova in Joan of Ozark (1942)
    Joan of Ozark
    • Guido
    • 1942
  • Paul Henreid and Michèle Morgan in Joan of Paris (1942)
    Joan of Paris
    • Gestapo Agent
    • 1942
  • George Barbier, Bruce Edwards, and Brenda Joyce in Marry the Boss's Daughter (1941)
    Marry the Boss's Daughter
    • Nick (uncredited)
    • 1941
  • Charles Laughton, Deanna Durbin, and Robert Cummings in It Started with Eve (1941)
    It Started with Eve
    • Popalard - Apartment Tenant (uncredited)
    • 1941

Videos3

Trailer [OV]
Trailer 1:22
Trailer [OV]
Ninotchka
Trailer 2:17
Ninotchka
Nosferatu vs. Father Pipecock & Sister Funk (2014)
Trailer 5:19
Nosferatu vs. Father Pipecock & Sister Funk (2014)

Personal details

Edit
  • Alternative name
    • Aleksandr Granakh
  • Born
    • April 18, 1893
    • Wierzbowce, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Verbovcy, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine]
  • Died
    • March 14, 1945
    • New York City, New York, USA(embolism after an appendectomy)
  • Spouse
    • Martha Guttmann1914 - 1921 (divorced, 1 child)
  • Publicity listings
    • 1 Print Biography
    • 2 Articles

Did you know

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  • Trivia
    When he had finished his apprenticeship with a baker, he came in contact with Russian-Jewish students and he sympathized with the revolutionary movement in Russia.

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