Erich Kober

Erich Kober (born December 8, 1885 in Oldisleben , † September 22, 1955 in Vienna ) was a German-Austrian actor , film director and screenwriter .

Life

Born in Thuringia and the son of an actor - his father was the Viennese actor Gustav Kober (1849–1920) - received his artistic training from Josef Kainz and began his acting career in 1903 at the theater in Görlitz . Erich Kober came to Berlin for the first time in 1910 for an engagement via stage stops in Glatz (1904/05), Basel (1905/06), Gießen (1906/07), Stuttgart (1907/08) and most recently in Tsarist Riga (now Latvia ) to perform at the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Schauspielhaus there. At a young age he was usually entrusted with lover roles, one of his most famous parts was Moritz Stiefel in Frank Wedekind 's ' Spring Awakening '.

Shortly before the First World War , Kober gained his first film experience when he played Sweth , Andreas Hofer's secretary , in Carl Froelich's large-scale production Tyrol in Arms . Temporarily drafted during the war, Kober was only able to appear in front of the camera as a soldier during a home leave in Vienna (1916). After the war he stayed in the Austrian capital and was given the opportunity to direct a film. With Fiat-Film he owned his own production company for a few years. Back in Berlin in 1923, Kober was given little opportunity to work in film (role and assistant director in “ The Student of Prague ”), and he also found it difficult to make friends at the theater. With the dawn of the sound film age, Kober was able to get hold of two film roles, a staging produced in-house, the kayaking story “ Die Wasserteufel von Hieflau ”, remained his last work.

Unemployed and penniless, Kober's situation deteriorated rapidly when the National Socialists came to power: Kober, branded by the brown rulers as a so-called ' quarter Jew ', was sidelined in the 3rd Reich and then went back to Vienna, where he without going back to the stage and to be allowed to work in the film, spent his old age. The last time Kober drew attention to himself was in 1948 when he published a biography of his former teacher under the title ' Josef Kainz - Mensch unter Masken '.

Filmography

• 1913: Tyrol in arms (actor)
• 1916: Vienna at war (actor)
• 1919: The Dream in the Forest (director, co-screenplay)
• 1919: The Devil's Child (Director, Production)
• 1919: Lilith and Ly (direction, production)
• 1919: The Diary (Direction, Production)
• 1920: Das Reich der Liebe (Direction, Production)
• 1926: The student from Prague (actor)
• 1928: Schinderhannes (actor)
• 1929: Sin and Morals (Director, Screenplay)
• 1930: Fire in the opera (actor)
• 1930: Hans in allen Gassen (actor)
• 1931: Die Wasserteufel von Hieflau (direction, production, co-screenplay)

literature

• 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. 207.

Web links

• Erich Kober in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Erich Kober at filmportal.de