Curt Goetz

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Curt Goetz with Leopoldine Konstantin (1917) in the comedy The Dancer
Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Fredericiastraße 1, in Berlin-Westend

Curt Goetz , actually Kurt Walter Götz , (born November 17, 1888 in Mainz , † September 12, 1960 in Grabs , Canton St. Gallen , Switzerland ) was a German - Swiss writer and actor .

Life

Kurt Walter Götz was born on November 17, 1888, the son of the Swiss businessman Bernhard Alexander Heinrich Werner Götz from Binningen , Canton Baselland , and his wife Selma (née Rocco).

Curt Goetz memorial in Halle by Michael Weihe

The father died in 1890. The mother went back with the two-year-old to her hometown Halle an der Saale , where she ran a private clinic. At the age of 18, Götz passed his matriculation examination after only one year at the municipal high school . His stepfather initially promoted his musical talent - Curt learned to play the cello . After taking acting lessons with the Berlin actor Emanuel Reicher , also supported by his stepfather, he made his stage debut at the Rostock City Theater in 1907 . Here he wrote his first skits for the theater stage.

From 1909 to 1911 he played at the Intimate Theater in Nuremberg , before he went to Berlin in 1911 (engagements at the Small Theater , Lessing Theater and German Art Theater ). He began to write his own tabloid pieces. Since then he has also called himself - initially only as an actor - Curt Goetz .

In 1912 he married the actress Erna Nitter , from whom he divorced in 1917. Curt Goetz played in many silent films, mostly crime novels, among others directed by Harry Piel , often the opposite of the main actor. One of his colleagues at the time was Max Landa . He began to write the first screenplays for silent films.

On December 20, 1923, he married Valérie von Martens in Berlin , whom he had met in the spring of the same year in Vienna on the occasion of the performance of his play Ingeborg , in which both played the leading roles.

In 1927 he fulfilled a lifelong dream by founding his own ensemble and went on tour with his pieces. In 1939 he went to Hollywood to study "filmmaking". Surprised by the Second World War , Curt Goetz stayed in the USA with his wife. Many of his colleagues were of the Jewish faith (e.g. the director Reinhold Schünzel ).

At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under contract, Goetz worked on various (see below) scripts. After the Greta Garbo film The Woman with Two Faces , he was offered a five-year contract. He declined because he had "had his experience with the American film industry". Instead, he and his wife bought a chicken farm in Van Nuys , Los Angeles , California and started raising chickens.

“They were also successful at this. They raised chickens that lay eggs with two yolks. The trick was that the chickens need animal protein. They put goat milk in the feed of their chickens. They kept the goats on the farm. Marketing, especially in hotels, went extremely well. They had this "trick" from the old farmer Mr. Purdy, who lived in the neighborhood and who had helped them set up the chicken farm. One of the consequences of this was that Curt Goetz gained a reputation as a kind of miracle animal doctor. "

- Curt Goetz : Curt's stories ( other works )

In California, Goetz wrote his story Tatjana and the novel Die Tote von Beverly Hills as well as a new version of the play Hocus-Pocus . He also reworked his one-act play Die tote Tante into the play Das Haus in Montevideo , which he successfully presented in 1945 with Valérie von Martens at the Playhouse Theater on Broadway .

After the end of the Second World War , the couple lived again in Switzerland from 1946, whose citizenship was owned by Curt Goetz through his father. In 1951 his play Das Haus in Montevideo and in 1953 his play Hokuspokus hit the cinemas with great success. In his play Nothing New in Hollywood from 1956, Goetz satirically talked about his experiences in America. Here, too, he used his talent for depicting dialogues and situations with the ease that is typical of American screwball comedies . From the end of the 1950s, Goetz increasingly withdrew to his home in Schaan in Liechtenstein . In 1958 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts . A short time later he retired into private life for health reasons.

Curt Goetz's grave of honor in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend
Relief by Goetz on his grave in Berlin

Curt Goetz died in 1960 at the age of 71 in Grabs, Switzerland. The burial took place in the Berlin cemetery Heerstrasse in today's Westend district . The widow Valérie von Martens was buried at his side in 1986. By resolution of the Berlin Senate , Curt Goetz's final resting place (grave location: 16-G-11/12) has been dedicated to the State of Berlin since 1984 as an honorary grave . The dedication was extended in 2005 by the usual period of twenty years.

Valérie von Martens published the memoirs Wir wandern, wir wandern… three years after the death of her husband . She also donated the Curt-Goetz-Ring in 1985 for people who continue Goetz's work by adding “the light tone of comedy Combine intelligence and a humanistic attitude ”.

Several streets are named after Goetz, including in Halle (Saale) , Hamburg-Bramfeld , Mainz and Binningen .

plant

Curt Goetz is considered one of the most brilliant comedy writers in the German-speaking world. Together with Valérie von Martens, he played his pieces himself and also filmed them. His gynecologist Dr. Prätorius was one of the first new film projects after the Second World War that was produced and filmed in Germany. Again and again he is compared to George Bernard Shaw (to whom, by the way, he was largely related) or even to Oscar Wilde .

In the Edition Filmmuseum series , five restored original films have been released on DVD : Friedrich Schiller - A young poet , hocus-pocus , Das Haus in Montevideo , gynecologist Dr. Praetorius and Napoleon are to blame for everything . The DVDs also contain various radio plays ( Herbst , Die Rache and Das Märchen ) and interviews. (see link)

71 radio plays based on works by Curt Goetz or based on pieces he has worked on have appeared on German-language public radio, of which he has acted as a speaker in six radio plays. Many recordings are no longer available from the producing broadcasters. (see link)

Works

Stage plays

Processing:

Translations:

prose

Scripts

  • Carneval in Paris. A strange encounter. (1966)

memoirs

  • The memoirs of Peterhans von Binningen (Memoirs Volume 1, 1960)
  • The Metamorphosis of Peterhans von Binningen (Memoirs Volume 2, Preparation of the Script - Completion by Valérie von Martens, 1962, No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from April 11 to May 8, 1962 )
  • We wander, we wander ... (Memoirs Volume 3, Memoirs of Valérie von Martens, 1963)

Other works

  • Towaritsch (1934) - by Jacques Deval , arranged for the German stage
  • 3 times a day (1964)
  • Heart in Tails (1966) - co-author
  • 4 times a day (1968)

Collective editions

  • Collected Works . Herbig (Kahnert), Berlin-Grunewald 1952.
  • Fritz Fröhling (Ed.): Have fun with Curt Goetz . Hyperion-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1964.
  • Valerie von Martens (ed.): The great Curt Goetz album - pictures of a life . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968.
  • Valerie von Martens (ed.): Curt's stories - short stories by and about Curt Goetz . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, ISBN 3-421-01581-3 .
  • with Valerie von Martens: Ergoetzliches . Hyperion-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1974, ISBN 3-7786-0185-7 .
  • All stage works . Heyne, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-453-00773-5 .

Films based on templates by Curt Goetz

Filmography

Performers unless otherwise noted

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Curt Goetz  - Quotes
Commons : Curt Goetz  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth register Mainz 1888, No. 1794
  2. ↑ Ask Reich-Ranicki: More interesting than Oscar Wilde's comedies. In: faz.net , March 21, 2012. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c Curt Goetz . Biography at filmportal.de.
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . Pp. 486, 491.
  5. ↑ Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection: Honorary Graves of the State of Berlin (Status: November 2018) (PDF, 413 kB), p. 26. Accessed on November 10, 2019. For a time limit of twenty years, see: Implementing Regulations for Section 12 Paragraph 6 Cemetery Act (AV Ehrengrabstätten) (PDF, 24 kB) of August 15, 2007, Paragraph 10. Accessed on November 10, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Goetz, Curt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Götz, Kurt; Götz, Kurt Walter (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swiss writer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1960
Place of death Grabs , Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland