Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn , 12 May 1892 – 22 July 1970) was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director .
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Fritz Kortner
Kortner in 1959
Born Fritz Nathan Kohn
(1892-05-12 ) 12 May 1892Died 22 July 1970(1970-07-22) (aged 78) Burial place Munich Waldfriedhof Occupation(s) Actor; theatre director Years active 1915–1968 Spouse
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Kortner at the age of 19 years, circa 1911
Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn into a Jewish family. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art . After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. After his breakthrough performance in Ernst Toller 's Transfiguration in 1919, he became one of Germany's best-known character actors and the nation's foremost performer of Expressionist works. He also appeared in over ninety films beginning in 1916.
His specialty was in playing sinister and threatening roles, although he also appeared in the title role of Dreyfus (1930). He originally gained attention for his explosive energy on stage and his powerful voice; but as the 1920s progressed, his work began to incorporate greater realism, as he opted for a more controlled delivery and greater use of gestures.
With the coming to power of the Nazis , Kortner fled Germany in 1933 with his wife, actress Johanna Hofer , returning first to his native Vienna and, from there, on to Great Britain, and finally, in 1937, to the United States,[1] where he found work as a character actor and theater director.
He returned to Germany in 1949, where he became noted for his innovative staging and direction of classics by William Shakespeare and Molière , such as a Richard III (1964) in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the finale.[ citation needed ]
Kortner died at Munich in 1970, aged 78, of leukemia .[2]
Manya, die Türkin (1915)
Im Banne der Vergangenheit (1915)
Das Geheimnis von D.14 (1915)
Police Nr. 1111 (1915) – Mac Waldy
Das zweite Leben (1916)
Martyr of His Heart (1918) – Ludwig van Beethoven
The Other I (1918) – Professor
Frauenehre (1918, Short) – Mathias Enger
Der Sonnwendhof (1918)
Else of Erlenhof (1919)
The Eye of the Buddha (1919) – indischer Diener
Without Witnesses (1919)
Satan (1920) – Pharao Amenhotep
Gerechtigkeit (1920)
Va banque (1920) – S. M. Wulff
The Brothers Karamazov (1921) – Der alte Karamasoff
Catherine the Great (1920) – Potemkin
The Skull of Pharaoh's Daughter (1920)
Weltbrand (1920) – Iwan Becker
The Night of Queen Isabeau (1920) – Connetable
Die Verschleierte (1920)
Christian Wahnschaffe (1920)
The Maharaja's Favourite Wife (1921) – Bruder von Maharadscha Bhima
The Strongest Instinct (1921)
The Railway King (1921)
The House on the Moon (1921) – Jan van Haag – Wachsfigurenhändler
The House of Torment (1921) – Arzt
Hashish, the Paradise of Hell (1921) – Sultan
The Conspiracy in Genoa (1921) – Gianettino
Country Roads and the Big City (1921) – Mendel Hammerstein
Danton (1921)
Aus dem Schwarzbuch eines Polizeikommissars (1921) – Der Krüppel
The Hunt for the Truth (1921)
Backstairs (1921) – Der Postbote
The Railway King (1921)
On the Red Cliff (1922) – Henning Rinkens
Luise Millerin (1922) – Miller
The Earl of Essex (1922) – Lord Nottingham
Peter the Great (1922) – Patriarch Adrian
A Dying Nation (1922)
The Call of Destiny (1922)
What Belongs to Darkness (1922) – Gangster
At the Edge of the Great City (1922)
Nora (1923) – Krogstadt, Lawyer
Schatten – Eine nächtliche Halluzination (1923) – The count
A Woman, an Animal, a Diamond (1923) – Urmensch
Le revenant au baiser mortel (1923)
Poor Sinner (1923) – Canary
The Hands of Orlac (1924) – Nera
Modern Marriages (1924) – Diener
Kiedy kobieta zdradza meza (1924) – Lokaj
Doctor Wislizenus (1924) – Dr. Wislizenus
Should We Be Silent? (1926) – Der annoncierender Arzt
The Life of Beethoven (1927) – Ludwig van Beethoven
Mata Hari (1927) – Graf Bobrykin
Students' Love (1927) – Karsten
Alpine Tragedy (1927) – Mairas Vater
Caught in Berlin's Underworld (1927) – Lord
The Mistress of the Governor (1927) – Zarewitsch Alexander / Gouverneurs Sohn
Mary Stuart (1927) – Marschall Bothwell
Draga Maschin (1927)
Dame Care (1928) – Der alte Meyhöfer
Odette (1928) – Frontenac
Spy of Madame Pompadour (1928) – Zar Paul von Rußland
The Last Night (1928) – Montaloup
Pandora's Box (1929) – Dr. Ludwig Schön
Somnambul (1929) – Fabrikant Bingen
The Woman One Longs For (1929) – Dr. Karoff
The Woman in the Advocate's Gown (1929) – Konsul Backhaug
The Ship of Lost Souls (1929) – Kapitän Vela – Captain Fernando Vela
The Night of Terror (1929) – Prince Wagarin
Atlantik (1929) – Heinrich Thomas, author
Giftgas (1929) – Konzernpräsident Straaten
The Other (1930) – Prosecutor Hallers
Dreyfus (1930) – Alfred Dreyfus
Menschen im Käfig (1930) – Captain Kell
The Great Longing (1930) – Himself, Fritz Kortner
The Virtuous Sinner (1931, director)
Danton (1931) – Danton
The Murderer Dimitri Karamazov (1931) – Dimitri Karamasoff
You Don't Forget Such a Girl (1932, director)
Chu Chin Chow (1934) – Abu Hasan
Little Friend (1934) – Giant
Evensong (1934) – Arthur Kober
Abdul the Damned (1935) – Sultan Abdul Hamid II / Kelar – his double
The Crouching Beast (1935) – Ahmed Bey
Pagliacci (1936, writer)
Midnight Menace (1937) – Minister Peters of Grovnia
The Purple V (1943) – Thomas Forster
The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (1943) – Bauer
The Hitler Gang (1944) – Gregor Strasser
The Wife of Monte Cristo (1946) – Maillard
Somewhere in the Night (1946) – Anzelmo aka Dr. Oracle
The Razor's Edge (1946) – Kosti
The Brasher Doubloon (1947) – Rudolph Vannier
Berlin Express (1948) – Franzen
The Vicious Circle (1948) – Joseph Schwartz
The Last Illusion (1949) – Professor Mauthner
The Orplid Mystery (1950) – Mr. P. L. Hoopman
Bluebeard (1951) – Haushofsmeister
Secrets of the City (1955, director)
Sarajevo (1955, director)
Lysistrata [ de ] (1961, TV film, director)
Clavigo (1970, TV film, director)
1971: Letzten Endes. Fragmente. (posthumous autobiography, edited by Johanna Kortner)
1996: Aller Tage Abend. Autobiographie. Droemer-Knaur, München, 1996, ISBN 3-426-02336-9 .
2005: Aller Tage Abend. Auszüge, gelesen von Fritz Kortner. Alexander Verlag, Berlin ISBN 3-89581-137-8 .