Conrad Veidt

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Conrad Veidt 1929 on a photograph by Alexander Binder

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (born January 22, 1893 in Berlin , † April 3, 1943 in Hollywood , California , USA ) was a German actor . The role of Cesare in the classic film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari . In the 1920s he was one of the leading actors in German expressionist film , but he also made films in Great Britain, France and the USA. Veidt was a staunch opponent of the National Socialists and left the country after they came to power for Great Britain and later Hollywood. In English-language films, he was able to achieve further success with appearances in The Thief of Baghdad and Casablanca . Veidt was particularly often cast in malicious, driven or eccentric character roles.

life and career

Early life and first film roles

Conrad Veidt around 1920

Conrad Veidt was born into a middle-class family in Berlin and attended the Hohenzollern High School, which he had to leave in 1912 due to poor performance. He then turned to his career aspiration, acting. He began in 1913 as an acting trainee at Max Reinhardt's German Theater and appeared in small and medium-sized roles. The First World War prevented him from completing his education. Conrad Veidt was deployed on the Eastern Front, but fell ill there and was discharged from the army in January 1917 due to persistent health problems.

During the war he received his first film roles and appeared alongside Werner Krauss , Anita Berber and Reinhold Schünzel in Richard Oswald's educational and moral films, for example in the two-parter Die Prostitution and in Anders als die Andern , where he played a homosexual violinist . The last film was the first to openly deal with the issue of homosexuality and thus sparked a scandal. In 1919 he founded his own production company in order to choose suitable leading roles for himself. In 1919 and in 1920 he directed and produced several films.

International success

" Woman's Crusade ";
with Harry Liedtke , Werner Krauss , Maly Delschaft a . a .; Film poster 1926 by Lipót Sátori in Georg Pollak's studio

Conrad Veidt had his breakthrough to a film star in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari by the director Robert Wiene . In it he embodied the somnambulistic Cesare, who obeys willlessly while sleeping and kills people on behalf of his master. The cabinet of Dr. Like many subsequent films with Veidt, Caligari was an early example of expressionist film . Subsequently, he was mainly committed to sinister and eccentric roles, including as Ivan the Terrible in The Wax Museum (1923) and in Orlac's hands (1924) as a troubled pianist who thinks he is a murderer. In particular, the international success of Caligari paved Veidt's way to international film. After he had worked in the French film Le comte Kostia in 1925 , he was directed to Hollywood in 1927. Here he was first alongside John Barrymore as the French King Louis XI. to be seen in the adventure film Der Bettelpoet . The following year he also starred in Paul Leni's melodrama The Man Who Laughs , based on the novel The Laughing Man by Victor Hugo . His portrayal and appearance as Gwynplaine in this film has been proven to be the inspiration for the character of the Joker .

When talkies became popular in America in the late 1920s, Veidt was at a disadvantage with his German accent. After four American films, he returned to his home country and in 1929 took on the leading role in Das Land ohne Frauen , one of the first German sound films. After his return to Germany Veidt could be seen in 1931 as Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich in the film operetta Der Kongreß tanzt . He then played in the German films Ich und die Kaiserin (1933) and as Reichsvogt Gessler in Wilhelm Tell - The Freedom Drama of a People (1934). He also took on the lead role in the 1932 British film Rom-Express .

Emigration and English-language films

When Wilhelm Tell premiered in 1934, Veidt had already fled Germany. Veidt was seen as an opponent of the National Socialists and married his Jewish fiancée a week before he emigrated to England. Joseph Goebbels wanted to keep the film star in Germany and even promised Veidt to issue his wife with an Aryan certificate. When Veidt declined, however, and instead took the lead role in the British film Jud Suss , he was placed under house arrest by the Nazis. On April 6, 1933, he and his wife fled Germany after rumors of a planned murder of Veidt had last emerged.

In England in 1934 he took on the title role in Jud Suess , the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Lion Feuchtwanger and directed by Lothar Mendes . In 1938 Conrad Veidt took on British citizenship. His highlights in British film included three roles directed by Michael Powell : 1939 alongside Valerie Hobson in The Spy in Black and 1940 each in Contraband and his only color film The Thief of Baghdad , where he played a memorable role as the ruthless Grand Vizier Jaffar. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Veidt left England and went back to the USA, where he also campaigned for the United States to enter the war against the National Socialists. In addition to Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor , he appeared in 1940 as a German general in the bestseller adaptation Escape , one of the first US films to critically examine the political conditions in Germany at the time. Veidt had secured in his studio contract that he did not have to play any sympathetic National Socialists. He donated a large part of his earnings to the British Army for war purposes.

One of his best-known roles is that of the German major Strasser in Casablanca . In this film, the supporting actor received a higher fee than the leading actors Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart . Apart from his roles in propaganda films, he was committed to villains in Hollywood: in 1941 he was seen as the merciless impresario of Loretta Young in the novel of a dancer . In the film The Woman with the Scar he emotionally exploits Joan Crawford and tries to incite her to the murder of a young boy. It was only in his last film, Dangerous Honeymoon, alongside Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray , that he was able to play a positive role as a Nazi resistance fighter.

Death and personal life

Conrad Veidt died on April 3, 1943 of a severe heart attack that he suffered while playing golf with his family doctor. He was 50 years old. His urn is in the Golders Green Crematorium in London.

The actor was married three times: from 1918 to 1922 with the actress Gussy Holl , who married Emil Jannings after the separation from Veidt , 1923 to 1932 with Felicitas Radke, also an actress, and from 1933 until his death with Ilona Preger, née. Bata (1900–1980), who was also his agent. The daughter Viola Vera Veidt (1925-2004) emerged from her marriage to Felicitas Radke.

Filmography

literature

  • Daniela Sannwald: Continental Stranger: Conrad Veidt and his British films. In: Jörg Schöning (Ed.): London Calling. Germans in British film of the thirties. Edition Text + Critique, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-88377-445-6 , pp. 89–97.
  • Wolfgang Jacobsen (Ed.): Conrad Veidt. Life pictures. Selected photos and texts. Argon / Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-87024-242-6 .
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , pp. 650-654
  • Sabine Schwientek: Demon of the screen. Conrad Veidt and German Film 1894–1945. Schüren, Marburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-7410-0330-1 .

Web links

Commons : Conrad Veidt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography at the Conrad Veidt Society
  2. ↑ The Man Who Laughs: The Scary Clown Movie That Inspired The Joker. September 30, 2019, accessed June 23, 2020 (American English).
  3. ↑ The most enduring bad guy in cinema ; Article in the Sidney Morning Herald
  4. ^ Conrad Veidt on Arts in Exile
  5. ^ Conrad Veidt at Garbo Laughs
  6. ^ Conrad Veidt at Find A Grave
  7. ^ Biography about Conrad Veidt
  8. ^ Biography about Conrad Veidt
  9. ^ Conrad Veidt at Garbo Laughs
  10. ^ Conrad Veidt: Biography at the Internet Movie Database
  11. ↑ John T. Soister: Conrad Veidt on Screen: A Comprehensive Illustrated Filmography, McFarland, 2009, p 24 [1]
  12. ↑ The film Life Conrad Veidt. 1943, Schweizer Film = Film Suisse: official Swiss organ, accessed on June 21, 2020 .
  13. ↑ John T. Soister: Conrad Veidt on Screen: A Comprehensive Illustrated Filmography, McFarland, 2009, p. 12 [2]
  14. ↑ a b John T. Soister: Conrad Veidt on Screen: A Comprehensive Illustrated Filmography, McFarland, 2009, p 14 [3]
  15. ↑ John T. Soister: Conrad Veidt on Screen: A Comprehensive Illustrated Filmography, McFarland, 2009, p. 20 [4]
  16. ↑ Birgit Wetzig-Zalkind: This is Berlin: A City and Your Stars, Westkreuz, 2005, p. 202 [5]
  17. ↑ Viola Vera Veidt Findagrave.com , accessed September 7, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Veidt, Conrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Veidt, Hans Walter Conrad (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1943
Place of death Hollywood , California , USA