Emil Hess (actor)

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Emil Hess (also Emil Heß ; born February 3, 1889 in Wald ZH ; † March 2, 1945 in Zurich ) was a Swiss actor .

Life

Hess, who comes from the canton of Zurich , began his career in the late summer of 1911 on German touring stages. Later he worked for many years (until 1938) at the Stuttgart State Theater , but shortly after the First World War he also played in his native Zurich (city theater) and appeared in front of the camera for the first time during his few flying visits to Berlin in 1918.

It was not until the 1938/39 season, when the rather inconspicuous, bald-headed actor accepted an offer from the Berlin Comedy, that Emil Hess settled in the German capital.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War , the film contacted him again. Between December 1939 and February 1945 Hess was a very busy noble batch; He played the entire range of small roles, from the simple blacksmith (in Jud Süss ) and sculptor (in The Swedish Nightingale ) to the Grand Duke (in The Discharge ) to the Scottish Lord (in The Queen's Heart ) and a king (in The brave Little tailor ). Most recently he played pawns several times. In one of his last films, Der Kreuzlschreiber , Emil Hess was given the leading role of the large farmer. Most of the time he played his characters with a very serious face and sometimes suspicious to grim looking look.

The approaching end of the Third Reich prompted the obviously politically inexperienced Swiss citizen to undertake an extremely ambivalent action. In November 1944 he put on record that he wanted to go to Leutasch in Tyrol or Switzerland on behalf of the southwest German Gestapo in order to work there - in whatever form - for the Reich. How far this announcement was a given reason to break away from the militarily oppressed Reich can no longer be clarified.

Emil Hess, who had stood in front of the camera (for Gerhard Lamprecht's comrade Hedwig ) at the beginning of 1945 in Würzburg, which had been largely undamaged by then, actually left Berlin on February 25, 1945 and reached Berlin, under the most difficult of circumstances and completely exhausted, a few days later Switzerland. Immediately afterwards he died in Zurich.

Three sons were born in Berlin from his marriage to Elisabeth Ellinghaus. Wolfgang Hess (1937–2016), Urs Hess (1940–2013) and Migg Hess (* 1943) followed in their father's footsteps and started acting at an early age (since 1946 at Zurich theaters such as the Schauspielhaus and the Bernhardt Theater ) . In the 1950s, they also appeared in a few movies. The eldest son Wolfgang became a well-known voice actor.

Filmography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data and biographical information from the film archive Kay Less
  2. ↑ Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 22.
  3. ↑ Speaker Wolfgang Hess ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at sprecheratei.de. Retrieved September 30, 2013.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sprecherdaten.de
personal data
SURNAME Hess, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hess, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Forest ZH
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1945
Place of death Zurich