Franz von Schönthan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Franz von Schönthan , origin. Franz Schönthan von Pernwaldt (born June 20, 1849 in Vienna , † December 2, 1913 there ) was an Austrian journalist, actor and writer.

Franz von Schönthan, ca.1896
Schönthan (left) with Gustav Kadelburg , portrait by CW Allers .

Life

Franz von Schönthan comes from an old merchant family; his younger brother was the writer Paul von Schönthan . At the request of his family, he joined the Imperial and Royal Navy as a cadet in 1867 . Four years later, he resigned for health reasons.

In the following years Schönthan took private acting lessons and was soon able to make his debut in a small extra role at the Dessau court theater . He then switched to various ensembles a. a. von Zerbst , Köslin and Wesel ; In doing so, he advanced from extras to “youthful lover”. The highlight of this career was his guest appearance at the Royal Theater and a short time later his appearance at the Residenztheater .

Schönthan already began to write during these years. Initially for various newspapers and magazines essays and smaller contributions for the feature pages , later the first stage plays were created, his breakthrough as a writer he experienced on February 20, 1879 with the world premiere of his comedy "The Girl from Stranger". Among the premiere guests at the Thalia Theater (Hamburg) was the director of the First Berlin Comedy Theater , Theodor Lebrun , who hired him for his Wallner Theater on the same evening .

From this time on, Schönthan almost gave up acting. In 1883 he was appointed head director at the Vienna City Theater ; he lost this position when this venue was destroyed by fire a year later. He retired to his estate in Brunn am Gebirge ( Lower Austria ) for some time and then lived again and again in Berlin for some time . This commuting had become necessary because from 1887 he worked in the editorial department of the Berliner Lustige Blätter and also wrote for the “Wiener Tagblatt” again and again. Between 1888 and 1896 he settled as a writer in Blasewitz ( Dresden ), and from 1892 in the Pernwaldhaus built for him .

In 1896, after the sale of his Blasewizer villa, Schönthan returned to Vienna and stayed there for the rest of his life. He died there at the age of 64 and found his final resting place in the Döblinger Friedhof in Vienna, group 32, grave no. 29. In the last year of his life he had contributed the script to an early German detective film: Where is Coletti? (1913).

Doris von Schönthan was adopted by him as a small orphan.

His great-granddaughter, the actress Gabriele Philipp, wife of the writer Paul Frischauer , adopted the pseudonym Gaby von Schönthan as a writer in the 1960s .

In 1961, the Schönthanplatz in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him and his brother Paul von Schönthan.

reception

Except for his comedy The Robbery of the Sabine Women (1884), a piece written together with his brother (“Herr Director, someone is flowing again”), Schönthan's theater plays were not a long-term success. At the premiere in 1885 he played the theater director Striese . In many of his pieces he exaggerated the conditions in the military, which, however, hardly exceeded the daily interest of the audience. In addition to his brother, he also worked several times with the writers Franz Koppel-Ellfeld , Gustav von Moser and others.

His grave is in the Döblinger Friedhof (32-29) in Vienna.

Works

Franz von Schönthan's grave site
  • Circus people . Comedy in 3 acts. Bloch, Berlin 1894.
  • The golden Eve . Comedy in 3 acts. Bloch, Berlin 1896
  • The golden spider . Stagger in four lifts. Reclam, Leipzig 1885. ( digitized version )
  • Little hands . A comedy in three acts. After the French by Eugène Labiche. Reclam. Leipzig 1884
  • Small coin. Epigrams and sayings . Conitzer, Berlin 1890.
  • Smaller humoresques. Narratives . (4 vols., Together with Paul von Schönthan) Reclam, Leipzig 1882–1887.
  • Countess Guckerl . Comedy in three acts. Bloch, Berlin 1895 (together with Franz Koppel-Ellfeld)
  • War in peace . Comedy in five acts. Bloch, Berlin 1880 (together with Gustav von Moser)
  • The girl from abroad . Comedy in four acts. Reclam, Leipzig 1879. ( digitized and also online  - Internet Archive )
  • Maria Theresa . Costume comedy in four acts. 1903.
  • The robbery of the Sabine women . Wavering in four acts. 1879 (together with Paul von Schönthan)
  • Roderich Heller . Comedy in 4 acts. Bloch, Berlin 1883.
  • The Swabian coup . Comedy in 4 acts. Bloch, Berlin 1883.
  • Sodom and Gomorrah . Variation in 4 acts. 1879. ( digitized version )
  • Our women . Comedy in 5 acts. Bloch, Berlin 1881 (together with Gustav von Moser)
  • Villa Blancmignon . Comedy in three acts. Reclam, Leipzig 1884. (based on Henri Chivot ) ( digitized version )
  • The migratory bird . Wavering in four acts. Bloch, Berlin 1880 (together with Gustav von Moser).
  • For a good cause . Wavering in four acts. Bloch, Berlin 1895. (Together with Gustav Kadelburg)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ First performance Das Mädchen aus der Fremde p. 3
  2. ↑ G. v. Schönthan on the AVA-Verlag website ( Memento from March 5, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schönthan, Franz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schönthan Edler von Pernwald, Franz von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor, playwright and director
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1913
Place of death Vienna