Emil Jannings

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Emil Jannings' return from America, 1929

Emil Jannings , actually Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz (born July 23, 1884 in Rorschach , Switzerland (according to own information in New York ), † January 2, 1950 in Strobl , Austria ), was a German actor . He received the very first Oscar and is at the same time the only German so far to have been honored as best leading actor .

Early career

Emil Jannings in Variété , photography by Alexander Binder

Emil Jannings was born as the son of the American businessman Emil Janenz and his wife Margarethe (née Schwabe), a migrant from Germany of German-Russian descent in Rorschach, Switzerland on Lake Constance . He grew up as a German citizen in Switzerland as well as in Leipzig and Görlitz .

After he left high school without a degree and his mother initially forbade him to be an actor, he went to sea as a cabin boy for a year. After his return to Görlitz she allowed him to start an acting traineeship at the Theater Görlitz . There, however, he was certified as having a lack of talent.

However, Jannings was not discouraged by this. He joined various traveling stages and traveled with them between 1901 and 1908 throughout the German-speaking area. He received his first real engagement at the Glogau City Theater , Lower Silesia. Further engagements at various city theaters followed. In 1915 he came to Berlin, where he played on almost all stages with great success.

Finally he signed a contract with the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and made a name for himself there under the direction of Max Reinhardt as a character actor. Jannings also met Karl Gustav Vollmoeller through Reinhardt in 1915 . Jannings was also an acting colleague of Ernst Lubitsch . Both belonged to the Berlin society of the golden twenties . They came into contact with well-known personalities such as the Berlin society photographer Frieda Riess , who took portraits of them. In 1918 he played the village judge Adam in Heinrich von Kleist's Der Zerbrochne Krug at the Royal Theater in Berlin . With this role portrait Jannings celebrated one of his greatest stage successes.

Film career

Silent films in Germany

Emil Jannings did not see his fulfillment in film work. From an artistic point of view, it was not an adequate medium for his acting because he could not use his versatile voice in silent films. First he had his first film role in the film Im Schützengraben directed by Walter Schmidthässler for the Imperator-Film Co.mbH Berlin. He then played in numerous films for the expanding UFA year after year , which opened up a welcome source of money for him. From 1919 Jannings began to gain international fame. He shot a number of historical dramas, often directed by Ernst Lubitsch and Pola Negri played the leading female role, for example in The Eyes of the Mummy Ma and especially Madame Dubarry . In addition, Jannings gained recognition by impersonating well-known stage characters such as Othello , Tartüffe and Danton . He played best as a long-suffering man who was haunted by misfortune and died tragically in the end: The Last Man and Varieté helped him to the title of Best Actor in the World and to a lucrative contract with Paramount , where Lubitsch and Negri were already working.

In America

As in Germany, Jannings was mostly shown in America as a man dragged into perdition by circumstances and sinful women. His first film in America, The Way of All Flesh ( The Way of All Flesh ), directed by Victor Fleming , was in a sense the blueprint for all other stripes. The film had great financial success. The following year, Jannings played in His Last Command . Josef von Sternberg influenced him that Jannings acted with a controlled representation in front of the camera. Jannings was reluctant to do this. The resulting differences of opinion culminated in stormy arguments between the star and his director. After The Street of Sin had not met with criticism or the public, Ernst Lubitsch took over the direction of The Patriot . Jannings portrayed the mad Tsar Paul I in this film , who at the end is murdered for the better of Russia by Lewis Stone , the patriot of the title.

“Thank you for your kind invitation. I am pleased that the American film audience is interested in my career. My only regret is that I cannot make my communications in English, since I don't know a word of the Shakespeare language except 'How do You do' and 'All right' ... This is all the more astonishing as I know your readers I'm a native New Yorker. However, I left the huge city at the tender age of - 14 months. So linguistic or other memories are hardly to be expected from me. As a fourteen month old young man, my parents took me to Europe and spent the next 10 years of my life in Switzerland. Later we settled in a small German town, where I had to go to school, much for my own pleasure, but also to the dissatisfaction of the teachers. [...] In 1912 I was discovered by Reinhardt and performed for the first time in Berlin. My film career began two years later. When I saw myself on screen for the first time after the first day of shooting, I was disgusted. I rushed out of the screening room with tears in my eyes. And declared that under no circumstances would I allow the film to be shown, protested violently against the further recordings and swore with the most sacred oaths that this film would be the first and last if the company insisted on fulfilling my contract should be of my life. I broke this oath. (Incidentally, this first film was a great success.) A short time later, the new art of film had one of its most devoted followers in me, especially since I was allowed to work with Ernst Lubitsch, who was the first to recognize my film individuality and take it into account accordingly. "

- Emil Jannings about his life in an interview with an American journalist, printed in German translation in Mein Film No. 6, 1926

Jannings wasn't particularly happy in America because he missed the stage work. However, he made friends with Greta Garbo , whom he had met through his now friend Karl Gustav Vollmoeller , and made a large fortune, of which he hid over 200,000 dollars in cash in his pillow. That is why he was one of the few stars who were not affected by the stock market crash. Jannings became the first actor to win an Oscar in 1929 for his portrayal in the two films The Way of All Flesh and His Last Command . But with the switch from silent films to talkies, the public's taste changed rapidly and Jannings' rather exalted manner of presentation was quickly viewed as outdated. Therefore, he and his wife returned to Germany in mid-1929.

After 1929

Emil Jannings (2nd from right) next to Propaganda Minister Goebbels (3rd from right) in St. Wolfgang in 1938
Emil Jannings' grave in St Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut

Immediately afterwards he made his sound film debut, directed by Josef von Sternberg, in The Blue Angel . The renewed cooperation between the two fighters was due to the mutual friendship between the actor and director and Vollmoeller, who acted as head of the script team . Jannings was seen again as a suffering man who in the end perishes from his own greed. The star of the film, however, was Marlene Dietrich , who had made a number of films, but with a role that was not yet as demanding. Jannings also shot the English version of the film.

In the following year he shot the film Darling of the Gods (1930) alongside Renate Müller .

After 1933, Jannings also worked in the Nazi propaganda film Ohm Krüger in addition to several other films ; In addition to the main role, he also held the artistic direction, which quite a few critics resented. His films from this period did not show the level of his earlier work, especially his portrayal in The Broken Jug looked more like a filmed stage performance and left a static impression on the audience. Nevertheless, the film is to be regarded as one of the most successful popular adaptations of the piece, especially with regard to Jannings' humorous side, which was expressed here.

Was the quality of his play and to not doubt in his late period, and Jannings' performing skills proved particularly in films about historical figures, such as Robert Koch, the opponent of death and Dismissal (Alternative title: Twist of Fate ), in which he in The role of the aged but indomitable Prince Bismarck was convincing. He and Werner Hinz embodied closely related but competing characters three times . In The Old and the Young King they played Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son, who later became Friedrich II , in Ohm Krüger the Boer President Paul Krüger and his son Jan, and in The Discharge the old Bismarck and the young Kaiser Wilhelm II.

His last film Where is Mr. Belling? Jannings could no longer complete in 1945, because the Allies immediately banned the actor from appearing for life after the end of the Second World War . Its proximity to the National Socialist rulers served as the reason .

Private life

Jannings was married to Hanna Ralph (1888–1978) for the first time, and to the German actress Lucie Höflich (1883–1956) for the second time . In 1923 he married the actress and Diseuse Gussy Holl (1888–1966). He spent his time with her in Hollywood from 1926 to 1929. After returning from America in 1929, Jannings bought a house in Strobl on Wolfgangsee, where he lived with his wife until his death. Jannings became an Austrian citizen in 1948. Shortly before his death he converted from the Protestant to the Catholic faith in order to be buried in Sankt Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut . According to his wife, this was his last will. Jannings died of liver cancer in his home in 1950; his grave is in the cemetery in Sankt Wolfgang.

Filmography

Awards

Jannings' Star on the Boulevard of the Stars (2011)

Jannings was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

literature

Opera

In the opera Comeback by Oscar Strasnoy (composition) and Christoph Hein (libretto), which premiered in 2016 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden , Emil Jannings is one of the five characters in the plot, others are Tilla Durieux , Jörg Jannings , Paul Cassirer and Gussy Holl .

Web links

Commons : Emil Jannings  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Emil Jannings, the half-American . In: My film . No. 6 , 1926, pp. 4 ( ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online [accessed July 13, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Roman Rocek : The nine lives of Alexander Lernet-Holenia. A biography. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1997, ISBN 3-205-98713-6 , p. 186.
    Frank Noack: Jannings. The first German world star. 2012.
  3. ^ Gerhard Lamprecht : German Silent Films 1913-1914 . Deutsche Kinemathek e. V., Berlin 1969, p. 526 .
  4. ↑ Niels Martens: Robert Koch - Fighter of Death. uni-kiel.de
  5. ↑ a b Michaela Kipp: Emil Jannings. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
  6. ^ Rolf Badenhausen :  Jannings, Emil. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 337 f. ( Digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Peter Broucek: A General in the Twilight. The memories of Edmund Glaise von Horstenau . tape 2 . Hermann Böhlaus Verlag, 1983, p. 517 (Notes) .
  8. ↑ Rubrics: Emil Jannings . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1950 ( spiegel.de ).
  9. ↑ What was on January 2nd, 1950 . chroniknet.de, accessed on January 22, 2018.
  10. ^ Klaus Nerger: Emil Jannings. knerger.de, accessed on January 22, 2018.
  11. ^ Emil Jannings . The Hollywood Walk of Fame, accessed January 22, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Jannings, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Janez, Theodor Friedrich Emil (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Rorschach , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1950
Place of death Strobl , Austria