Friedrich von Ledebur

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Friedrich von Ledebur

Friedrich von Ledebur (born June 3, 1900 in Nisko , Austria-Hungary as Friedrich Anton Maria Hubertus Bonifacius Graf von Ledebur-Wicheln ; † December 25, 1986 in Schwertberg , Upper Austria ) was a film actor of Austrian descent , who through the role of the South Sea islander Queequeg in John Huston's film Moby Dick (1956) gained international fame.

The early years in Austria

The fourth of six children of Count Ledebur -Wicheln was born in the small Galician town of Nisko on the northern edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, near the Russian border. Friedrich von Ledebur spent his childhood during the winter months in the family's own Prague city ​​palace and in the count's castles in Bohemia and Hungary . There he quickly developed into an excellent rider, a skill that decades later would benefit him in his roles in the saddle or as a horse supervisor and consultant.

During the First World War, Count Ledebur served as an ulan in the Austro-Hungarian army . Having lost family assets and all possessions as a result of the peace treaty, Ledebur studied at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna in the early 1920s . He finished his studies with a degree in engineering. He then went to Linz and took up residence with his mother Marie von Ledebur in Alkoven in the (Upper) Austrian province.

The time as a globetrotter and adventurer

Since his first crossing to America on January 16, 1925 with the Albert Ballin from Hamburg to New York , Count Ledebur has been constantly on the move. He went to California and embarked from Los Angeles on March 13, 1926 for Honolulu . From March 20 to April 24, 1926, he stayed in Hawaii and then returned to San Pedro , California . He later traveled to Europe again, his return from Hamburg to the ( USA ) on August 25, 1928, where he landed in Los Angeles on October 5, is also documented. After another visit to Europe, which he presumably used to see his mother again, he embarked from Le Havre for the USA on October 4, 1930 .

Then (1932) he traveled to Tahiti for a while . Ledebur's journey home from Papeete to the USA (now to his new place of residence, San Francisco ) is documented from July 19 to July 29, 1932. Afterwards he visited his native Austria again and came to Vienna for the last time for a long time. At the end of November 1933 he left the Austrian capital again, signed up for Schloss Kammer am Attersee (Upper Austria) and finally emigrated to the USA on December 4th of the same year via Le Havre.

Immediately after his arrival, on January 9, 1934 in New York, he married the British actress Iris Tree , an actress. In spite of everything, Ledebur remained restless. At the beginning of 1936 and 1938 he is in Ireland , where he traveled home from Cobh , apparently coming from his old residence Schloss Kammer, to his adopted home New York. In the autumn of 1938 it can be proven again temporarily in Europe. Back in the USA, he applied for American citizenship on November 1, 1938 in Los Angeles, which he was to receive later. After his last return from Europe to the USA - a boat trip from Vlissingen in the Netherlands to New York, where he landed on September 2, 1939 - Ledebur was still staying, according to his own statement (as a result of the annexation of his old homeland Austria in 1938) Imperial German citizen, resident in the United States. His domicile remained in San Francisco until he went to Hollywood in World War II. Ledebur's trip abroad (flight to Great Britain ) was only documented in May 1950 . At that time he lived near Ojai , a small town in Ventura County , California .

Ledebur financed his numerous trips and his adventurousness by taking on a wide variety of jobs: He worked as a miner in California, as a swimming instructor in Hawaii, as a gold digger in Alaska , as a deep-sea fisherman in the South Seas , as a butler in Santa Barbara , California ; later (after 1945) also as an expedition member in Africa at the side of his long-time friend John Huston . As an experienced rider, he also took part in rodeos and won several prizes there. He also competed successfully in the legendary American 100-mile ride in one day . Ledebur, who had meanwhile Americanized his first name to Fredrick , did his military service during World War II in the mounted US Coast Guard patrol.

As an actor in Hollywood and Europe

For the first time he stood in front of the camera in 1944 as a Russian general - not mentioned in the credits - in Ernst Lubitsch's and Otto Preminger's scandal at court . He was also seen in a small supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious in 1946 .

A little later he met Ernest Hemingway and Huston, with whom he went hunting. Huston, his closest confidante in the Hollywood film community over the years, gave Ledebur his most interesting role in 1954: In the film adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick , the two-meter giant played the tattooed, monosyllabic, enigmatic South Sea islander Queequeg, who was on the ship of the fanatical whaler Hire Captain Ahab and anticipate his own death. The shooting took place in the autumn of 1954 in the Irish town of Youghal . When the film was released in 1956, Ledebur became well known.

After this success he worked as an actor in numerous other international film productions, including The Roots of Heaven , another Huston film. In the course of the 1960s, Ledebur increasingly shifted his acting activities to Europe, where he also appeared in two Karl May films - in Robert Siodmak's Der Schut he was given a small but not unimportant role of a magical charlatan - as well as in the second Nobody Starred in a film with Terence Hill . In Siodmak's farewell work, Kampf um Rom , Ledebur was seen as a stoic Goth Hildebrand .

In addition to his acting role, Ledebur also took on the duties of stunt coordinator for some films: in Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire , he organized the Roman chariot races, in Potato Fritz the Indian raids. At the age of 85, Count Ledebur, who had meanwhile retired in his old homeland, in Upper Austria , was persuaded to return in front of the camera. In the satire on television and the show world Ginger and Fred by the Italian Federico Fellini , who had given him a small role in Julia and the Ghosts a good twenty years earlier , Friedrich von Ledebur embodied an aged admiral.

Private

After the failed marriage with Iris Tree , who starred in a minor supporting role in Moby Dick , Friedrich von Ledebur married Countess Alice Hoyos in 1955 . Both connections have a son: Christian "Boon" (1928–2018) and John Friedrich (* 1956).

Friedrich von Thun , who was Ledebur's partner in Ginger and Fred and, like him, comes from the old Austro-Hungarian nobility, shot a 45-minute portrait of the unusual colleague for German television in 1982, entitled "Traces of an Adventurer - The Unusual Life of Friedrich von Ledebur "was broadcast.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 4: H - L. Botho Höfer - Richard Lester. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 636.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Place of death according to the film's large personal dictionary , p. 636
  2. ↑ so z. B. 1968 in the British film Alfred the Great - Conqueror of the Vikings
  3. ↑ Film archive K. Less, based on various travel documents Ledebur (passenger lists, passport applications, etc.)
  4. ↑ According to the film's large personal dictionary , p. 636 f.
  5. ↑ in his personal documents it says: 6 feet 7 inches
  6. ^ Film archive K. Less. See also guest column by Moby Dick- Star Richard Basehart in The Evening Standard , Uniontown, Pa., Nov. 6, 1954, p. 2
personal data
SURNAME Ledebur, Friedrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ledebur-Wicheln, Friedrich Anton Maria Hubertus Bonifacius Graf von (birth name); Queequeg, Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian film actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Nisko , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1986
Place of death Schwertberg , Upper Austria