Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-50 of 427
- Born the fourth of six children to Austrian customs officer Alois Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl, Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century. He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently beaten by his authoritarian father. Things got worse when Adolf's older brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mild-mannered mother occasionally tried to shield him, but was ineffectual. Adolf's attempt to run away at 11 was unsuccessful. At the age of 14 he was freed when his hated father died - an event that he did not mourn.
Hitler dropped out of high school at age 16 and went to Vienna, where he strove to become an artist, but was refused twice by the Vienna Art Academy. By this time Hitler had become an ardent German nationalist--although he was not German but Austrian--and when World War I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment in the German army. He was assigned as a message runner but also saw combat. Temporarily blinded after a gas attack in Flanders in 1918, he received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and was promoted from private to corporal. In 1918, when the war ended, Hitler stayed in the army and was posted to the Intelligence division. He was assigned to spy on several radical political parties that were considered a threat to the German government. One such organization was the German Workers' Party. Hitler was drawn by party founder Dietrich Eckart, a morphine addict who propagated doctrines of mysticism and anti-Semitism. Hitler soon joined the party with the help of his military intelligence ties. He became party spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socalist German Workers Party (NSDAP/NAZI) and declared himself its Führer (leader) one year later. In 1920 Hitler's intelligence handler, Munich-based colonel named Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika insignia. In 1921 Haushofer founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or SA), composed of German veterans of WWI and undercover military intelligence officers. They helped Hitler to organize a coup attempt--the infamous "beer hall putsch"--against the Bavarian government in Munich in 1923, but it failed. The "rebels" marched on Munich's city hall, which was cordoned off by police. Hitler's men fired at the police and missed; the police fired back and didn't, resulting in several of Hitler's fellow Nazis being shot dead. Hitler himself was arrested, convicted of treason and sent to prison. During his prison time he was coached by his advisers and dictated his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") to his deputy Rudolf Hess. He only served several months in prison before being released. By 1925 the Nazi party was in much better straits both organizationally and financially, as it had secured the backing of a large group of wealthy conservative German industrialists, who funneled huge amounts of money into the organization. Hitler was provided with a personal bodyguard unit named the "Schutzstaffel", better known as the SS. The Nazis began to gain considerable support in Germany through their network of army and WWI veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931. Defeated by the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler next attempted to become Chancellor of Germany. Through under-the-table deals with powerful conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. One month later, a mysterious fire--which the Nazis claimed had been started by "terrorists" but was later discovered to have been set by the Nazis themselves--destroyed the Reichstag (the building housing the German parliament). Then Hitler's machine began to issue a series of emergency decrees that gave the office of Chancellor more and more power.
In March of 1933 Hitler persuaded the German parliament to pass the Enabling Act, which made the Chancellor dictator of Germany and gave him more power than the President. Two months later Hitler began "cleaning house"; he abolished trade unions and ordered mass arrests of members of rival political groups. By the end of 1933 the Nazi Party was the only one allowed in Germany. In June of 1934 Hitler turned on his own and ordered the purge of the now radical SA--that he now saw as a potential threat to his power--which was led by one of his oldest friends, a thug and street brawler named Ernst Röhm. Röhm's ties to Hitler counted for nothing, as Hitler ordered him assassinated. Soon President Hindenburg died, and Hitler merged the office of President with the office of Chancellor. In 1935 the anti-Jewish Nuremburg laws were passed on Hitler's authorization. A year later, with Germany now under his total control, he sent troops into the Rhineland, which was a violation of the World War I Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 he forced the union of Austria with Germany and also took the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia near the German border with a large ethnic German population, on the pretext of "protecting" the German population from the Czechs. In March 1939 Hitler overran the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a non-aggression treaty. In September of 1939 Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland. France and the British Commonwealth and Empire declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany occupied Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, and launched a major offensive against France. Paris fell and France surrendered, after which Hitler considered invading the UK. However, after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and four months later Hitler retaliated by ordering the Blitz. In 1941 German troops assisted Italy, which under dictator Benito Mussolini was a German ally, in its takeover of Yugoslavia and Greece. Meanwhile, in Germany and the occupied countries, a program of mass extermination of Jews had begun.
On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. In addition to more than 4,000,000 German troops, there were additional forces from German allies Romania, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Spain and Finland, among others. Hitler used multinational forces in order to save Germans for the future colonization of the Russian lands. Following the detailed Nazi plan, code-named "Barbarossa," Hitler was utilizing resources of entire Europe under Nazi control to feed the invasion of Russia. Three groups of Nazi armies invaded Russia: Army Group North besieged Leningrad for 900 days, Army Group Center reached Moscow and Army Group South occupied Ukraine, reached Caucasus and Stalingrad. After a series of initial successes, however, the German Armies were stopped at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis for 900 days until the city of 4,000,000 virtually starved itself to death. Only in January of 1944 was Marshal Georgi Zhukov able to finally defeat the German forces and liberate the city, finally lifting the siege after a cost of some 2,000,000 lives. In 1943 several major battles occurred at Kursk (which became the largest tank battle in history), Kharkov and Stalingrad, all of which the Germans lost. The battle for Stalingrad was one of the largest in the history of mankind. At Stalingrad alone the Germans lost 360,000 troops, in addition to the losses suffered by Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian and other forces, but the Russians lost over one million men. By 1944--the same year the Western allies invaded occupied Europe--Germany was retreating on both fronts and its forces in Africa had been completely defeated, resulting in the deaths and/or surrender of several hundred thousand troops. Total human losses during the six years of war were estimated at 60,000,000, of which 27,000,000 were Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other people in Soviet territory. Germany lost over 11,000,000 soldiers and civilians. Poland and Yugoslavia lost over 3,000,000 people each. Italy and France lost over 1,000,000 each. Most nations of Central and Eastern Europe suffered severe--and in some cases total--economic destruction.
Hitler's ability to act as a figurehead of the Nazi machine was long gone by late 1944. Many of his closest advisers and handlers had already fled to other countries, been imprisoned and/or executed by the SS for offenses both real--several assassination attempts on Hitler--and imagined, or had otherwise absented themselves from Hitler's inner circle. For many years Hitler was kept on drugs by his medical personnel. In 1944 a group of German army officers and civilians pulled off an almost successful assassination attempt on Hitler, but he survived. Hitler, by the beginning of 1945, was a frail, shaken man who had almost totally lost touch with reality. The Russians reached Berlin in April of that year and began a punishing assault on the city. As their forces approached the bunker where Hitler and the last vestiges of his government were holed up, Hitler killed himself. Just a day earlier he had married his longtime mistress Eva Braun. Hitler's corpse was taken to Moscow and later shown to Allied Army Commanders and diplomats. Joseph Stalin showed Hitler's personal items to Winston Churchill and Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam Conference after the victory. Hitler's personal gun was donated to the museum of the West Point Military Academy in New York. Some of his personal items are now part of the permanent collection at the National History Museum in Moscow, Russia. - Director
- Writer
- Producer
Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. From 1910 to 1914, he traveled in Europe, and he would later claim, also in Asia and North Africa. He studied painting in Paris from 1913-14. At the start of World War I, he returned to Vienna, enlisting in the army in January 1915. Severely wounded in June 1916, he wrote some scenarios for films while convalescing. In early 1918, he was sent home shell-shocked and acted briefly in Viennese theater before accepting a job as a writer at Erich Pommer's production company in Berlin, Decla. In Berlin, Lang worked briefly as a writer and then as a director, at Ufa and then for Nero-Film, owned by the American Seymour Nebenzal. In 1920, he began a relationship with actress and writer Thea von Harbou (1889-1954), who wrote with him the scripts for his most celebrated films: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) (credited to von Harbou alone). They married in 1922 and divorced in 1933. In that year, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels offered Lang the job of head of the German Cinema Institute. Lang--who was an anti-Nazi mainly because of his Catholic background--did not accept the position (it was later offered to and accepted by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl) and, after secretly sending most of his money out of the country, fled Germany to Paris. After about a year in Paris, Lang moved to the United States in mid-1934, initially under contract to MGM. Over the next 20 years, he directed numerous American films. In the 1950s, in part because the film industry was in economic decline and also because of Lang's long-standing reputation for being difficult with, and abusive to, actors, he found it increasingly hard to get work. At the end of the 1950s, he traveled to Germany and made what turned out to be his final three films there, none of which were well received.
In 1964, nearly blind, he was chosen to be president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He was an avid collector of primitive art and habitually wore a monocle, an affectation he picked up during his early days in Vienna. After his divorce from von Harbou, he had relationships with many other women, but from about 1931 to his death in 1976, he was close to Lily Latte, who helped him in many ways.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and manager Maximilian Steiner. His family was Jewish. As a child, he was astonishingly musically gifted, composing complex works as a teenager and completing the course of study at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in only one year, at the age of sixteen. He studied under Gustav Mahler and, before the age of twenty, made his living as a conductor and as composer of works for the theater, the concert hall, and vaudeville. After a brief sojourn in Britian, Steiner moved to the USA in the same wave as fellow film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and quickly became a sought-after orchestrator and conductor on Broadway, bringing the Western classical tradition in which he had been raised to mainstream audiences.
He was soon snatched up by the film studios with the advent of sound and helped the fledgling talkies become musically sophisticated within a brief few years. He was one of the first to fully integrate the musical score with the images on-screen and to score individual scenes for their content and create leitmotifs for individual characters, as opposed to simply providing vaguely appropriate mood music, as evidenced in King Kong (1933), which set the standard for American film music for years to come.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, he was one of the most respected, innovative, and brilliant composers of American film music, creating a truly staggering number of exceptional scores for films of all types. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his scores eighteen times and won three times. Years after his death in 1971, he remains one of the giants of motion picture history, and his music still thrives.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
One of a large group of Hungarian refugees who found refuge in England in the 1930s, Sir Alexander Korda was the first British film producer to receive a knighthood. He was a major, if controversial, figure and acted as a guiding force behind the British film industry of the 1930s and continued to influence British films until his death in 1956. He learned his trade by working in studios in Austria, Germany and America and was a crafty and flamboyant businessman. He started his production company, London Films, in 1933 and one of its first films The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), received an Oscar nomination as best picture and won the Best Actor Oscar for its star, Charles Laughton. Helped by his brothers Zoltan Korda (director) and Vincent Korda (art director) and other expatriate Hungarians, London Films produced some of Britain's finest films (even if they weren't all commercial successes). Korda's willingness to experiment and be daring allowed the flowering of such talents as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and gave early breaks to people such as Laurence Olivier, David Lean and Carol Reed. Korda sold his library to television in the 1950s, thus allowing London Films' famous logo of Big Ben to become familiar to a new generation of film enthusiasts.- 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.
- Ernst Deutsch was born on 16 September 1890 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for The Third Man (1949), Der Prozeß (1948) and Isle of the Dead (1945). He was married to Anuschka Fuchs. He died on 22 March 1969 in West Berlin, West Germany.
- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Karl Freund, an innovative director of photography responsible for development of the three-camera system used to shoot television situation comedies, was born on January 16, 1890, in the Bohemian city of Koeniginhof, then part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire (now known as Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic). Freund went to work at the age of 15 as a movie projectionist, and by the age of 17, he was a camera operator shooting shot subjects and newsreels. Subsequently, he was employed at Germany's famous UFA Studios during the 1920s, when the German cinema was the most innovative in the world.
At UFA, Freund worked as a cameraman for such illustrious directors as F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. For Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh), screenwriter Carl Mayer worked closely with Freund to develop a scenario that would employ the moving camera that became a hallmark of Weimar German cinema. One of the most beautiful and critically acclaimed silent films, The Last Laugh (1924) is considered the perfect silent by some critics as the images do most of the storytelling, allowing for a minimal amount of inter-titles. The collaborative genius of Murnau, Mayer, and Freund meant that the images communicated the integral part of the narrative, visualizing and elucidating the protagonist's psyche. Freund filmed a drunk scene with the camera secured on his chest, with a battery pack on his back for balance, enabling him to stumble about and produce vertiginous shots suggesting intoxication.
Director Ewald André Dupont gave credit for the innovative camera work on his masterpiece Variety (1925) (aka Variety) to Freund, praising his ingenuity in an article published in The New York Times. Freund was one of the cameramen and the co-writer (with Carl Mayer and director Walter Ruttmann) on Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis (1927) (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City), an artistic documentary that used a hidden camera to capture the people of the city going about their daily lives. Always technically innovative, Freund developed a high-speed film stock to aid his shooting in low-light situations. This film also is hailed as a classic. Other classic German films that Freund shot were The Golem (1920) (aka The Golem) and Lang's Metropolis (1927).
Now possessing an international reputation, Freund emigrated to the U.S. in 1929, where he was employed by the Technicolor Co. to help perfect its color process. Subsequently, he was hired as a cinematographer and director by Universal Studios, where he cut his teeth, uncredited, as a cinematographer on the great anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Universal's first Oscar winner as Best Picture.
Universal's bread and butter in the early 1930s were its horror films, and Freund was involved in the production of several classics. Among his Universal assignments, Freund shot Dracula (1931) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and directed The Mummy (1932). The Mummy (1932) was Freund's first directorial effort, and co-star Zita Johann, who disliked Freund, claimed he was incompetent, which is unfair, seeing as how the film is now considered a classic of its genre. The film uses the undead sorcerer Imhotep's pool with which he can impose his will over the living by spreading some tana leaves on the water, as a visual metaphor for the subconscious. The film is arresting visually due to Freund's cinematic eye that created a sense of "otherness." The film is infused with a dream-like state that seems rooted in the subconscious mind. Freund's other directorial efforts at Universal proved less satisfying.
Moving to MGM, Freund directed just one more motion picture, Mad Love (1935) (aka The Hands of Orlac) a horror classic that utilized the expressionism of his UFA apprenticeship. With the great lighting cameraman Gregg Toland as his director of photography, the collaboration of Freund and Toland created a European sensibility unique for a Hollywood horror film. The compositions of the shots featured arch shapes and utilized the expressive shadows of the best of the European avant-garde films of the 1920s.
But MGM wanted Freund for his genius at camera work. He shot the rooftop numbers for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), another Best Picture Oscar winner, and worked with William H. Daniels, Garbo's favorite cameraman, on "Camille" (1936). He shot Greta Garbo's Conquest (1937) solo, though he never worked with Garbo again. That same year, he was the director of photography on The Good Earth (1937), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Other major MGM pictures he shot were Pride and Prejudice (1940), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Tortilla Flat (1942), and A Guy Named Joe (1943). He also worked for other studios, shooting Golden Boy (1939) for Columbia. In 1942, he pulled off a rare double: he was nominated for Best Cinematography in both the black and white and color categories, for The Chocolate Soldier (1941) and Blossoms in the Dust (1941), respectively.
One of the last films he shot for MGM was Two Smart People (1946), starring Lucille Ball. In 1947, he moved on to Warner Bros, where he shot the classic Key Largo (1948) for John Huston. His last film as a director of photography was Michael Curtiz' Montana (1950), which starred Gary Cooper.
Always the technical innovator, Freund founded the Photo Research Corp. in 1944, a laboratory for the development of new cinematographic techniques and equipment. His technical work culminated in his receipt of a Class II Technical Award in 1955 from the Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences for the design of a direct-reading light meter. That same year, he had the honor of representing his adopted country at the International Conference on Illumination in Zurich, Switzerland.
It was perhaps inevitable that the technical and innovation-minded Freund would get to work for a brand new visual medium, television. Lucille Ball, whom he had photographed when she was a contract player at MGM, became his boss when he was hired as the director of photography at Desilu Productions, owned by Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz. Desilu hired the great Freund as its owners were determined to shoot the show I Love Lucy (1951) on film rather than produce the show live, as was standard in the early 1950s. Most shows were shot live, while a film of the program was simultaneously shot from a monitor, a process that created a "kinescope." The kinescope would be shown in other time zones on the network's affiliates. Desilu's owners disliked the quality of kinescopes, and needed Freund to come up with a solution to their problem of how to maintain the intimacy of a live show on film.
Freund agreed that the show should be shot on film rather than live, as film enabled thorough planning and allowed for cutting, which was impossible with live TV. Freud knew that film would allow Desilu to eliminate the fluffs which were a staple of early television, and would allow the producers to re-shoot scenes to improve the show, if needed.
I Love Lucy (1951) had to be filmed before an audience to retain the immediacy of a live TV show, which meant that the traditional, time-consuming methods of studio production with one camera would not work. Freund decided to shoot I Love Lucy (1951) with three 35mm Mitchell BNC cameras, one of each to simultaneously shoot long shots, medium shots and close-ups. Thus, the editor would have adequate coverage to create the 22 minutes of footage needed for a half-hour commercial network show.
The then-innovative, now-standard technique of simultaneously shooting a situation comedy with three 35mm cameras cut the production time needed to produce a 22-minute program to one-hour. The cameras were mounted on dollies, with the center camera outfitted with a 40mm wide-angle lens, and the side cameras outfitted with 3- and 4-inch lenses. The resulting shots were edited on a Movieola. A script girl in a booth overlooking the stage cued the camera operators. Due to extensive rehearsal time before the show was shot live, the camera operators had floor marks to guide them, but Freund's system was enabled by the script girl overseeing their actions via a 2-way intercom. The system made the shooting, breaking-down, and setting-up process for the next scenes on the three sets of the I Love Lucy (1951) stage very economical in terms of time, averaging one and one-half minutes between shots.
Freund worked out the lighting during the rehearsal period. Almost all of the lighting was overhead, except for portable fill lights mounted above the matte box on each camera. In Freund's system, there were no lighting changes during shooting, other than the use of a dimming board. Since the lighting was mounted overhead on catwalks, power cables were kept off the floor, which facilitated the dollying that was essential for making the system work fluidly.
Freund's solution to the problem of shooting a show on film economically was to make lighting as uniform as possible, taking advantage of adding highlights whenever possible, since a comedy show required high-key illumination. Due to the high contrast of the tubes in the image pickup systems at the television stations, contrast was a potential problem, as any contrast in the film would be exaggerated upon transmission of the film. To keep the film contrast to what Freund called a "fine medium," the sets were painted in various shades of gray. Props and costumes also were gray to promote a uniformity of color and tone that would not defeat Freund's carefully devised illumination scheme.
In a typical workweek, the I Love Lucy (1951) company engaged in pre-production planning and rehearsals on Monday through Thursday. I Love Lucy (1951) was filmed before a live audience at 8:00 o'clock PM on Friday evenings, and Freund's camera crew worked only on that Friday and the preceding Thursday. Freund, however, attended the Wednesday afternoon rehearsal of the cast to study the movements of the players around the sets, noting the blocking and their entrances and exits, in order to plan his lighting and camera work. Thursday morning at 8:00 o'clock AM, Freund and the gaffers would begin lighting the sets, which typically would be done by noon, the time the camera crew was required to report on set to be briefed on camera movements. Then, Freund would rehearse the camera action in order to make necessary changes in the lighting and the dollying of the cameras.
It was during the Thursday full-crew rehearsal that the cues for the dimmer operator were set, and the floor was marked to indicate the cameras' positions for various shots. For each shot, the focus was pre-measured and noted for each camera position with chalk marks on the stage floor. Another rehearsal was held at 4:30 PM with the full production crew. Though a full-dress rehearsal was held at 7:30 PM, with the attendance of the full crew, the cameras were not brought onto the set. The director would take the opportunity to discuss the plan of the show and solicit input from the cast and crew on how to tighten the show and improve its pacing.
The next call for the entire company was at 1:00 PM on Friday to discuss any major changes that were discussed the previous night. After this meeting, the cameras would be brought out onto the stage, and at 4:30 PM, there would be a final dress rehearsal during which Freund would check his lighting and make any required changes.
After a dinner break, the cast and production crew would hold a "talk through" of the show to solicit further suggestions and solve any remaining problems. At 8:00 PM, the cast and production crew were ready to start filming the show before a live audience. Before shooting, one of the cast or a member of the company had briefed the audience on the filming procedure, emphasizing the need for the audience's reactions to be spontaneous and natural.
Shooting was over in about an hour due to the rapid set-ups and break-downs of the crew, which shot the show in chronological order. Due to the thorough planning and rehearsals, retakes were seldom necessary. Camera operators in Freund's system had to make each take the right way the first time, every time, to keep the system working smoothly, and they did. An average of 7,500 feet of film was shot for each show at a cost that was significantly less than a comparable major studio production.
Freund also served as the cinematographer on the TV series Our Miss Brooks (1952), which was shot at Desilu Studios, and Desilu's own December Bride (1954). It was no accident that Desilu productions turned to Karl Freund to realize their dream of creating a high-quality show on film. Freund had the broadest experience of any cameraman of his stature, starting in silent pictures, and then excelling in both B&W and color in the sound era. With his penchant for technical innovation, he was the ideal man to develop solutions for filming a television show. Freund met the challenge of creating high quality filmed images in a young medium still handicapped by its primitive technology.
Freund became the dean of cinematographers in a new medium, with Desilu's I Love Lucy (1951) and its other shows recognized as the gold standard for TV production. His work ensured the fortunes of Desilu Productions, and the personal fortunes of Desilu owners Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, as he provided them with quality films of each show that could be easily syndicated into perpetuity, whereas the live shows filmed secondarily off of flickering TV monitors as kinescopes could not.
After retiring as a cinematographer, Freund continued his research at the Photo Research Corp. He died on May 3, 1969.- Marshal Josip Broz Tito, Communist President of Yugoslavia, and 1st Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, was born as Josip Broz on May 7, 1892, in the village of Kumrovec, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Croatia). He was the seventh of 15 children born to Roman Catholic peasants. His blacksmith father, Franjo Broz, was a Croat, and his mother, Marija, was Slovene. After spending part of his childhood years with his maternal grandfather in Podsreda (present-day Slovenia), he returned to Kumrovec to attend school. He failed the first grade and left his formal education behind in 1905, to be apprenticed with a locksmith. As a journeyman locksmith he moved around the Empire.
The 18-year-old Broz joined the Croatian Social Democratic Party, and in 1913, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army. At the beginning of World War I, Broz, who had won a silver medal at an army fencing competition in May of 1914, was sent to Ruma. It was there he began to find himself and his life's calling, and was later arrested for anti-war propaganda and imprisoned. He was sent to Galicia to fight against the Russians and Serbs in 1915, and was seriously wounded by shellfire. In April 1915 his entire battalion was captured by the Russians.
The wounded Broz spent several months convalescing in a military hospital, where he learned to speak Russian. In the fall of 1916 he was sent to a work camp in the Ural mountains. While at the camp the first Russian Revolution of February 1917 (March, new style) occurred, culminating in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on March 15th. Broz was arrested for organizing demonstrations among the prisoners of war in April 1917, but he escaped and joined the Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd after the first revolution), engaging in street fighting during the attempted Bolshevik coup d'etat in Petrograd on July 16-17, 1917.
The Bolshevik insurrection failed to spark a wider revolt and was crushed by forces loyal to Aleksandr Kerensky, head of the provisional government. Broz fled for Finland to try to avoid arrest, but he was captured and sent to prison. He escaped from a train taking him to another work camp and in November joined the Red Army in Omsk, Siberia, fighting with the Red Guards in the first years of the Russian Civil War, pitting Reds against Whites (royalists). Broz applied for membership in the Russian Communist Party in the spring of 1918.
The Treaty of Versailles incorporated the territory of Croatia into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and when he returned to his village in 1920, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Now employed as a metalworker, Broz became a union organizer. He was arrested after a Bosnian KPJ member assassinated the Yugoslav Minister of the Interior, which led to the outlawing of the KPJ. Broz switched his organizing activities to the underground, and in April 1927 he had ascended to the KPJ's Committee in Zagreb. As a KPJ committeeman he caught the attention of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Through Soviet influence, Broz was raised to the position of deputy of the Politburo of the KPJ Central Committee and named leader of the Croatian and Slovenian committees.
By 1934 parliamentary democracy in Yugoslavia had been replaced by a dictatorship under the Yugoslav king, and the KPJ remained banned. It was in this year, shortly after his release from his latest prison sentence, that Broz was named a full member of the KPJ Politburo and Central Committee. He adopted nomme de guerre "Tito" to use in his party work (possibly because "tito alba", the owl, a creature of the night, which also represents wisdom).
The newly nicknamed Tito went to the USSR in 1935, where he served in the Communist International's (Comintern) Balkan section. After a year with the Comintern, Tito, who apparently won the confidence of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, was named Secretary-General of the KPJ and returned to Yugoslavia to rebuild the party. Tito filled party posts with his hand-picked replacements. Eventually his position as Secretary-General of the KPJ was officially ratified by KPJ members at a secret meeting in Zagreb in 1940.
The Yugoslav government was pressured by Germany and Italy to join the Axis Powers. Initially it resisted, but finally threw in its lot with the Axis on March 25, 1941, under duress. On March 27th the government was overthrown by a pro-Western military coup in Belgrade, thus aborting Yugoslavia's alliance with the Axis. Ten days later, on April 6th, Yugoslavia was invaded by German, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops, and the Royal Yugoslav army was vanquished in less than two weeks, surrendering on April 17th.
When the Axis invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, Stalin ordered the KPJ to offer no resistance due to the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact signed in August 1939. Despite ample warning, Stalin did not believe Adolf Hitler would attack the Soviet Union. What he did not know about the Axis incursion into Yugoslavia was that Hitler was securing his southern flank prior to the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the imminent invasion of the USSR. When Germany attacked the USSR in June 1941, it now became a duty for a communist to defend his "motherland" by fighting the Axis powers. Tito called a meeting of the Central committee, which named him Military Commander. The partisans' struggle began with Tito's call to arms for the people of Yugoslavia with the slogan, "Death to Fascism, Freedom to the People!"
Their prior organization as underground communist cells used to functioning in secrecy and with the strictest discipline meant that Tito's partisans were very well-organized and extremely effective. His aim was not only to liberate Yugoslavia but establish the KPJ in liberated areas. Revolutionary governments were established in areas the partisans liberated, which foreshadowed the administrative structure of postwar Yugoslavia.
The non-communists, mostly Serbian Chetniks, also fought against the Axis and had the support of both the British and the Yugoslav government in exile. However, they were not seen as effective as Tito's partisans, and the US and the UK switched their support to the partisans after they successfully fought off ferocious Axis attacks from January to June 1943. The partisans were officially recognized at the Tehran Conference, with the result that Allied arms, supplies and agents were parachuted behind Axis lines to assist them. Stilll, Tito refused to cooperate with the government-in-exile in London.
After the February 1945 Yalta Conference, at which the parameters of postwar Europe were agreed upon, Marshal Tito consolidated his power and that of the KPJ by purging his government of non-communists. Tito signed an agreement with the USSR on April 5, 1945, that permitted "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory". With the help of the Red Army, Tito's partisans won the war against the Axis and their collaborators. Tito then ordered foreign troops off of Yugoslav soil after V-E Day, and turned to eliminating domestic rivals, including members of the originally anti-fascist Chetnik movement (who eventually collaborated with the Germans to try to stop Tito) and the fascist Ustashe, who from the beginning had supported the Nazis as a vassal state in Croatia. Members of both organizations were summarily tried and executed en masse. General Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic, the Chetnik leader, was executed in March 1946.
Winning the rigged November 1945 elections, Tito imposed a new constitution on Yugoslavia. He further consolidated his power by organizing a strong army and a secret police force (the UDBA), both of which were personally loyal to him. In the postwar years Tito used the UDBA to eliminate Nazi collaborators. He also targeted Catholic priests and those who had opposed the communist-led war effort. The purge was eventually extended to include even those communists who did not agree with Tito.
Initially, the economy and society were collectivized in Soviet fashion, although he did not push for the collectivization of agriculture. Tito began to resent Stalin's constant meddling with his government and his suggestions on how Tito should run his economy. On his part, Stalin was unhappy with what he perceived as an independent foreign policy that was out of sync with Moscow. Stalin tried to depose Tito but would not go so far as to invade Yugoslavia, whose mountainous terrain had hamstrung Hitler's troops and was ideal territory for partisan attacks against an organized military force.
Tito denounced the Soviet policy of "... unconditional subordination of small socialist countries to one large socialist country." In response, Stalin had Tito and the KPJ expelled from the Cominform in June 1948. The USSR, through its Common Market-style organization called Comecon, boycotted Yugoslavia.
Through the vehicle of UDBA, Tito purged the KPJ of hardcore Stalinists, those that could not be "reeducated." He began decentralizing the economy, putting more power into the hands of workers' councils on the principle of workers' self-management. To keep himself in power and Yugoslavia independent of the USSR, he turned to the West for financial aid. The Greek civil war, pitting mostly Communists against the anti-Communist Greek government, sputtered out after Tito sealed off the border with Greece, effectively keeping arms, supplies and fighters from getting to the Communist rebels.
After the death of Stalin in March 5, 1953, Tito attempted a reconciliation with the USSR, meeting with new CPSU party boss Nikita Khrushchev in Belgrade in 1955. The meeting resulted in the Belgrade Declaration, which affirmed equality in relations between communist countries (although in the case of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, that equality was observed in the breach rather than the observance).
Freed to a degree of the Soviet threat, Tito's policy of "nonengagement" developed into a policy of "nonalignment." He overhauled his foreign policy to promote a non-aligned bloc between the West and the Warsaw Pact. Convening a meeting of 25 non-aligned states with India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, a third, alternative neutral bloc came into being. Tito traveled extensively in the developing world during the 1960s and 1970s to promote non-alignment.
On the domestic front, Tito maintained a balance among the different ethnic groups and nationalities of his multi-ethnic country. It ensured stability for as long as the KPJ and the secret police maintained control of Yugoslavia. Tito's system of "symetrical federalism," while predicated upon the principle of equality among the six republics and two autonomous provinces, in fact played the nationalities off against each other.
His ties with the West encouraged trade, which helped boost Yugoslavia's standard of living. Yugoslavia's beaches became a top tourist destination for Western European tourists, due to their beauty, the relative openness of Yugoslav society and the favorable exchange rate, which made an excursion to Yugoslavia very affordable. The economy of some of the Yugoslav provinces, particularly Croatia and Slovenia, thrived during the Cold War.
Marshal Tito was styled President-for-Life in 1974. While he allowed a freer exchange of people and ideas than most of the countries in the communist bloc, the major question of his regime remained would Yugoslavia survive the death of Tito. Without a strongman and the monopoly on power enjoyed by the KPJ, backed up by the army and the secret police, would Yugoslavia remain a country?
Josip Broz Tito died on May 4, 1980 in a hospital in Ljubljana, Slovenia, after being gravely ill for almost four months. He was the last of the World War II leaders to leave the world stage, having outlived his patron, then nemesis Stalin by almost 30 years. The country that he kept together did not outlive him by much more than a decade. Croatian nationalists won the first free elections in their republic in April and May 1990. The independence of Slovenia was proclaimed on June 25, 1991. Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed their independence on October 8, 1991 and March 3, 1992 respectively, triggering civil wars in those republics, which left Yugoslavia a rump federation consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro. - Alphons Fryland was born on 1 May 1888 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor, known for Der Geliebte seiner Frau (1928), Die Insel der Träume (1925) and Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg - Die Tragödie eines Kaiserreiches (1928). He was married to Magdalena Stemann. He died on 29 November 1953 in Graz, Austria.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joseph Egger was born on 22 February 1889 in Donawitz, Styria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor, known for A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and Das alte Försterhaus (1956). He was married to Erna. He died on 29 August 1966 in Gablitz, Lower Austria, Austria.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Ernst Marischka was born on 2 January 1893 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a writer and director, known for Embezzled Heaven (1958), Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957) and Sissi - Die junge Kaiserin (1956). He was married to Lilly Marischka. He died on 12 May 1963 in Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Fritz Kortner was born on 12 May 1892 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor and director, known for Pandora's Box (1929), Somewhere in the Night (1946) and The Hands of Orlac (1924). He was married to Johanna Hofer. He died on 22 July 1970 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Luis Trenker (born in St-Ulrich, southern Tyrol (now Italy) as Alois Franz Trenker) was a film director, singer, author, ski champion and mountain climber, wood-carver, stage and film actor. He went to school in Bolzano to become a carver artist. From 1912 to 1914 he studied Architecture.
He fought in WWI as an officier in the Dolomite. After that, he made a documentary film "Wunder des Schneeschuhs" (1921) with Arnold Fanck. In 1934 he worked in Hollywood, but went back to Europe. In 1966 he worked for TV with the ski champion Toni Sailer in "Luftsprünge". He lived with his wife in Meran, kept an office in Munich, wrote his Memories ("Alles gut gegangen" ("Everything went swell")). He died on Pneumonia and heart attack in a hospital in Bolzano.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Handsome Hollywood character player Victor Varconi was born into a farming family on the Hungarian/Rumanian border. Christened Mihály Várkonyi, his career, following training at Budapest's commercial college and dramatic school, thrived for a time on the Transylvanian stage, where he played leads in such productions as "Liliom" at the Hungarian National Theatre in Budapest. His rising popularity as a matinée idol led to film roles, and he made his debut in Sárga csikó (1914) ["The Yellow Colt"]. He had changed his marquee name to the more internationally friendly Michael Varkonyi by the time he branched out into German/Austrian co-productions such as Arme Violetta (1920) ["Camille"] opposite Pola Negri.
In 1924, during Europe's constant political upheaval, Varconi arrived on American soil and sought fame and fortune as a Hollywood actor. Based on his exceptional work as the "Angel of the Lord" in the German/Austrian film Sodom and Gomorrah (1922), Cecil B. DeMille gave him his American film debut opposite established star Leatrice Joy in Triumph (1924), billed now as Victor Varconi. He proceeded to work for DeMille on a number of silent films, including Changing Husbands (1924), Feet of Clay (1924), The Volga Boatman (1926) and The King of Kings (1927) as Pontius Pilate. Elegant and impeccably mannered in style and nature, Varconi went on to share the screen with some of silent film's loveliest and most talented ladies, including Agnes Ayres, Marie Prevost, Jetta Goudal and Phyllis Haver. Of note is his portrayal of cuckolded husband Amos opposite Haver's flashy jailbird Roxie Hart in the silent Chicago (1927). His last major silent role was that of Lord Horatio Nelson in The Divine Lady (1928) co-starring Oscar-nominated Corinne Griffith as Emma (Lady) Hamilton.
The Hungarian Varconi had a decent voice for sound but his noticeably thick accent completely altered the course of his career. Instead of romantic leading man status, he regressed slightly to suave ethnic character roles -- often playing foreign or royal dignitaries, continental cads or cultivated villains. The forced move probably added years to his Hollywood life. World War II utilized his talents playing nefarious Axis commanders in spy intrigue and war dramas. In The Hitler Gang (1944) he was quite skillful portraying real-life Nazi bigwig and Adolf Hitler confidant Rudolf Hess. Varconi also appeared in many of DeMille's sound epics, such as The Plainsman (1936) (as an Indian chief), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), Unconquered (1947) and Samson and Delilah (1949).
As his film career faded, Varconi turned more and more to stage work and radio writing. Among his Shakespearean theatre endeavors were roles in "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Richard III." He also moved occasionally into TV in the 1950s, then retired. Varconi published his memoirs, "It's Not Enough to Be Hungarian", shortly before suffering a fatal heart attack at age 85 in 1976.- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Second only to the great Caruso, Austrian opera singer Richard Tauber is revered as one of the world's finest Mozartian tenors to come out of early to mid-20th century Europe.
He was born on May 16, 1891 of modest means in Linz, Austria, the illegitimate son of soubrette Elisabeth Seiffert, who sang locally as well as toured. His father, Richard Anton Tauber, a legit actor, was not married to his mother and, in fact, was unaware of his parental status for quite some time after his son's birth. Richard traveled with his mother at a young age where he developed an ardent passion for the musical arts, but it proved a grueling and impossible undertaking for the actress who was continually on the road. The boy was finally sent to live with his father at age 6 who then took over his upbringing.
Trained in voice, Tauber initially seemed to lack fire and dimension, drawing unimpressive responses from his music masters. Unequipped to sing the heavy scores of the Romanticist composer Richard Wagner, who was his idol, Tauber subsequently studied piano and composition before coming under the tutelage of famed voice teacher Professor Carl Beines. It was Beines who redirected his pupil back to voice with the prospects of interpreting the classical works of Mozart.
Finally realizing and acknowledging his operatic niche, Tauber progressed quickly and made his public concert bow in 1912. A year later came his stage debut as Tamino in Mozart's "The Magic Flute" with the help of his father, who had become the Intendant of both the Municipal and Stadt-Theater in Chemnitz. A few days later he played Max in "Der Freischütz" and, as a result, was offered a five-year contract with the Dresden Opera. The Vienna and Berlin companies were to follow where he worked up a rich repertoire of roles in such operas as "Don Giovanni," "Tosca," "Mignon," "Faust" and "Carmen." During this time he also recorded extensively.
Richard extended his lyrical tenor in a then-unheard move to include lighter-styled operettas. His first performance of a Franz Lehár work was in Berlin in 1920 with "Zigeunerliebe". In 1922 he was offered the part of Armand in Lehár's "Frasquita" at the Theater an der Wien, which proved to be a resounding success. He not only singlehandedly revived Lehár's flagging career but greatly expanded his own audience of admirers. Lehár went on to compose several new works specifically designed for Tauber's voice. These included "Der Zarewitsch" (1926), "Friederike" (1928), "The Land of Smiles" (1929), "Beautiful Is the World" (1930), and "Giuditta."
Tauber's vast talents also included conducting at the Vienna Theater, where he met and married soprano Carlotta Vanconti. With their busy schedules they managed to occasionally tour in operettas together. After about a year of marriage, however, the bloom was off the rose and they separated in 1928, divorcing two years later. Tauber also tested the virtually new waters of talking pictures with such breakthrough musical films as Das Land des Lächelns (1930) [The Land of Smiles], Never Trust a Woman (1930) [Never Trust a Woman], The Alluring Goal (1930) [The Golden Goal], The Big Attraction (1931) [The Big Attraction], and Right to Happiness (1932) his more prominent vehicles.
Part Jewish on his father's side, the rise of Nazism in his native Austria had Richard making frequent out-of-country appearances in London. He also starred in several popular musical films in England. Following skirmishes with Nazi purists, he eventually emigrated to London. He appeared again in filmed musicals and earned fine notices for his portrayal of composer Franz Schubert in April Blossoms (1934), as well as for his work in Heart's Desire (1935), the Leoncavallo tragedy A Clown Must Laugh (1936), and Forbidden Music (1936). He met and married frequent British co-star Diana Napier in 1936.
Making his London operatic debut with "The Magic Flute" in 1938, the U.S. was willing to embrace Tauber with open arms but the artist remained true to England throughout the war years. As there was no opera staged in wartime Britain, he made ends meet with concerts, conducting and composing operettas, radio broadcasts and recordings. One of his operettas, "Old Chelsea," produced his signature song, "My Heart and I." In 1947, Tauber sought help for an aggravated cough which was subsequently diagnosed as lung cancer.
Despite extreme difficulties in breathing and the collapse of one lung, Tauber gave a bravura performance in one of his favorite roles, Don Ottavio in "Don Giovannia" at Covent Garden on September 27, 1947 and fulfilled this engagement the following day at the Camden Theatre, having begun and ended his formidable career performing Mozart. Three days later, on October 1st, he entered Guy's Hospital for the removal of a cancerous lung; the surgery took place the next day--only five days after his final performance.
Tauber died of complications on January 8, 1948. His devoted second wife Diana published her first biography of her husband a year after his death; her second "My Heart and I" was published in 1959.- Writer
Karel Capek, born January 9, 1890, in Male Svatonovice, Austria-Hungary (today Czech Republic) was a writer, playwright, novelist, journalist, children's author, biographer, essayist, illustrator, photographer and translator. For most people he is best known for the science fiction play "R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots)", published in 1920. The word "robot," was coined by his brother Josef. "R.U.R." quickly became famous and was influential early in the history of its publication. By 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages. In this drama about man abusing technology, the Rossum factory R.U.R. makes robots on an island. The robots revolt and murder all humans except for one man whom they order to find the secret formula of their existence, without which they can longer live. "R.U.R." premiered in Prague on 25 January, 1921. It was translated into English by Paul Selver and staged in London, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles during 1922-1923. Spencer Tracy played robot in the New York version (1922) at the Garrick Theater on Broadway. Karel Capek was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, but he was never awarded one. He died of pneumonia, on December 25, 1938. The Gestapo, not aware of his death, arrived at the Capek family house in Prague in order to arrest him.- Eduard Kohout was born on 6 March 1889 in Ceské Budejovice, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Batalión (1937), The Cremator (1969) and On the Comet (1970). He died on 25 October 1976 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].
- Ivo Andric was born on 9 October 1892 in Dolac near Travnik, Austria-Hungary [now Bosnia and Herzegovina]. He was a writer, known for The Bridge on the Drina, Legends of Anika (1954) and The Woman from Sarajevo (1980). He was married to Milica Babic-Andric. He died on 13 March 1975 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hermann Thimig was born on 3 October 1890 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor, known for Victor and Victoria (1933), The Threepenny Opera (1931) and The Doll (1919). He was married to Vilma Degischer and Hanna Wisser. He died on 7 July 1982 in Vienna, Austria.- Acted extensively in German theatre in 1930's until driven out by demonstrators due to being Jewish. Returned to theatre pretending to be German farmer, Nazi press competed to heap praise on him. Eventually he was betrayed by a former colleague (though an actor in the same production also recognised him but kept silent). He then continued working in Vienna until the Anschluss after which he moved to the US. He was married to German Actress Agnes Straub. The story of his impersonation of an Aryan farmer was used as the basis of Austrian Playwright, Felix Mitterer's play "In Der Lowengrube", now translated into English as "In The Lion's Den".
- Sound Department
Herbert Kuchenbuch was born on 20 July 1890 in Aussig, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He is known for Storm Over Mont Blanc (1930). He was married to Ellen Widmann. He died on 18 April 1985 in Marburg, Hesse, Germany.- Hans Janowitz was born on 2 December 1890 in Podiebrad, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Podebrady, Czech Republic]. He was a writer and actor, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Zirkus des Lebens (1921) and The Head of Janus (1920). He died on 25 May 1954 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Kid Wagner was born on 30 April 1891 in Rudzwiank, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. He was an actor, known for The Abysmal Brute (1923), Heart Trouble (1928) and Cross Fire (1933). He was married to Ruth Geary. He died on 25 April 1977 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Friedrich Feher was born on 16 March 1889 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a director and actor, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Robber Symphony (1936) and William Tell (1913). He was married to Magda Sonja. He died on 30 September 1950 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Paul Czinner was born on 30 May 1890 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a director and writer, known for Escape Me Never (1935), Husbands or Lovers (1924) and The Bolshoi Ballet (1957). He was married to Elisabeth Bergner. He died on 22 June 1972 in London, England, UK.