Edward G. Robinson

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Edward G. Robinson (1931), photo by Elmer Freyer (1898–1944)

Edward G. Robinson , born Emanuel Goldenberg ( December 12, 1893 in Bucharest , Romania , † January 26, 1973 in Los Angeles ), was an American actor. After a career at the theater in New York , he made his breakthrough to star in Hollywood in the early 1930s as the gangster Rico Bandello in the film Little Caesar . Although he is best remembered as a major gangster actor, he has also played a long line of other characters in films such as Woman Without a Conscience , The Ten Commandments, and Soylent Green . Robinson starred in over a hundred films; he received an Honorary Oscar and is ranked 24th on the American Film Institute's list of the Fifty Greatest American Film Stars of All Time .

Life

General

Robinson was born as Emanuel Goldenberg in Bucharest ( Romania ) to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents, Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg. After one of his brothers was beaten up by an anti-Semitic mob , the family decided to emigrate to the United States. Robinson arrived in New York on February 14, 1903, at the age of nine . He grew up on the Lower East Side and attended Townsend Hall High School and City College , where he decided to become an actor. Thanks to a scholarship, he was then able to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Private life

Robinson was married to actress Gladys Lloyd from 1927 to 1956. In 1933 their son, Edward G. Robinson Jr. was born, who also became an actor (including an appearance as a gangster in a cake in Some Like It Hot ) and died in 1974 at the age of only 40. Robinson was an avid collector. When he divorced his wife in 1956, after nearly thirty years of marriage, he was forced to sell his art collection, mainly Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, acquired by Stavros Niarchos .

In 1958, Robinson married Jane Bodenheimer, a 38-year-old fashion designer known as Jane Arden.

Acting career

theatre

From 1913 Robinson, who had changed his name to Edward G. (for Goldenberg) Robinson, appeared as an actor. In 1915 he made his debut on Broadway , where he appeared in around 40 plays over ten years. He also played in Yiddish theaters . In 1929 he starred in The Kibitzer , a play he had written with Jo Swerling , who later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. In the 1950s Robinson returned to the theater after he was no longer given roles in good films for political reasons during the McCarthy era , and played among others in the play Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayefsky , which was performed on Broadway from 1956.

Movie

Robinson had his first film roles in silent films , for example in The Bright Shawl from 1923, where he played an old man. His first role in a sound film came in 1929 in A Hole in the Wall with Claudette Colbert , and later he appeared in A Lady To Love alongside Vilma Bánky . His breakthrough came when he switched to Warner Brothers . He became a star thanks to his role as gang boss Rico Bandello in Little Caesar , directed by Mervyn LeRoy . A short time later he played a newspaper editor who ruins a family's life in Five Star Final . Mervyn LeRoy again directed. In the following years Robinson turned other variations of his first two successes, for example in The Hatchet Man , which showed him as a Chinese gang boss who is almost broken by the love for a woman played by Loretta Young . In I Loved a Woman and Silver Dollar Robinson was also seen as a successful entrepreneur who disregards all morals for success and in the end breaks because of the futile love for a woman. As early as 1932 he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, in 1939 he was the third best paid American film actor after Gary Cooper and James Cagney .

In the mid-1930s he expanded his repertoire. In the 1935 comedy The Whole Town's Talking , he played alongside Jean Arthur , directed by John Ford, both a gangster and his harmless doppelganger. A staunch anti-fascist, he played an FBI agent who unearthed a Nazi spy ring in Confessions of a Nazi Spy , the first Hollywood film to portray the Nazis as a threat to the United States in 1939 . Then he played the doctor Paul Ehrlich in the lavishly produced film Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and Paul Julius Reuter , the founder of the Reuters news agency , in A Dispatch from Reuter , both biographical films about important Jews from 1940.

In the 1940s, he played particularly in psychological dramas: Directed by Billy Wilder on the side of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Idemnity , with Fritz Lang worked in The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street together, in both films played Joan Bennett at his side. In 1946, Robinson starred as a Nazi hunter in Orson Welles ' The Stranger with Loretta Young . In 1948 he played the gangster Johnny Rocco with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in John Huston's Key Largo . For his role in House of Strangers by Joseph L. Mankiewicz , he received the Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949 .

Commitment to fascism and the McCarthy era

Robinson became involved early on against fascism and National Socialism and tried in 1938, together with numerous other filmmakers, in vain to win the American Congress for a boycott against the Third Reich. Robinson supported numerous charitable and political organizations and was an active member of several anti-fascist organizations, such as the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League . He was observed by the FBI during the war and after the war he was accused of supporting the communist coup and was summoned several times before the committee for un-American activities . Although not on the infamous blacklist, he no longer received roles in major films. Ultimately, he humiliated himself and described himself as an unsuspecting victim of communist conspirators and published an article entitled "How the Reds made a sucker out of me" without him returning to major roles as a result Films. It was only after director Cecil B. DeMille , one of Hollywood's most prominent anti-communists, gave him a role in The Ten Commandments that he was able to play in A-films again.

Late roles

Among his better known roles late in the performances include Cincinnati Kid alongside Steve McQueen and in Richard Fleischer's ... 2022 ... that want to survive ( Soylent Green ) alongside Charlton Heston . Two weeks after shooting this film, Robinson died of bladder cancer at the age of 79 . He was buried in the Goodman Mausoleum in Beth El Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York . Shortly after his death he was awarded the honorary Oscar for his life's work. Robinson's autobiography All my yesterdays , co-authored with Leonard Spigelgass, was also published in 1973.

In 1979 the author Raymond Sierra was inspired by Robinson for his piece Manny .

synchronization

Numerous speakers lent Robinson their voice in German-language synchronizations ; most often the actor Alfred Balthoff , so z. B. In Woman Without a Conscience , Dangerous Encounters , The Ten Commandments, or the Cincinnati Kid . Other voice actors were Harald Juhnke , Günter Strack and Fred Maire .

Awards

  • 1949: Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival for Best Actor for Blood Hostility.
  • 1966: 2nd place in the Golden Laurel Award for Best Male Supporting Actor for the Cincinnati Kid.
  • 1970: Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for life's work and services to acting.
  • 1973: Honorary Oscar for his life's work (posthumously).
  • A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame bears his name at the address 6233 Hollywood Blvd .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • James Robert Parish, Alvin H. Marill: Cinema of Edward G. Robinson. Yoseloff, February 19, 1973, ISBN 0-498-07875-2 .
  • Robert Beck: The Edward G. Robinson Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company, August 2002, ISBN 0-7864-1230-5 .
  • Little Caesar: A Biography of Edward G. Robinson. Scarecrow Press, June 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4950-X .

Web links

Commons : Edward G. Robinson  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Steven Ross: Hollywood Left and Right. How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 91-92 , accessed March 15, 2012 (English, ISBN 978-0-19-518172-2 ).
  2. ↑ Carolyn Kellogg: Book review: Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. by Steven J. Ross. In: Los Angeles Times. November 6, 2011, accessed March 15, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Steven Ross: Hollywood Left and Right. How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 95 , accessed March 15, 2012 (English, ISBN 978-0-19-518172-2 ).
  4. ↑ Steven Ross: Hollywood Left and Right. How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 99-101 , accessed March 15, 2012 (English, ISBN 978-0-19-518172-2 ).
  5. ↑ Steven Ross: Hollywood Left and Right. How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 121–123 , accessed March 15, 2012 (English, ISBN 978-0-19-518172-2 ).
  6. ↑ movieactors.com: biography of Edward G. Robinson (English)
  7. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Edward G. Robinson
  8. ↑ walkoffame.com: Edward G. Robinson (English)
personal data
SURNAME Robinson, Edward G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goldenberg, Emmanuel (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Bucharest , Romania
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1973
Place of death Los Angeles , California, USA