Frits van Dongen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frits van Dongen , also Philip Dorn ; Born Hein van der Niet (born September 30, 1901 in Scheveningen , The Hague , Netherlands , † May 9, 1975 in Woodland Hills , Los Angeles , California ) was a Dutch actor .

Life

The son of a shoemaker played theater since he was 15 years old. He came first in amateur dramatic clubs in and around Scheveningen , while he worked as a bricklayer and boat builders. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in The Hague, and since he has worked with renowned theater companies such as De Haeghe-spelers , he has given himself the stage name Frits van Dongen. From 1929 he went on a tour of the Dutch colonies.

From 1934 onwards he received roles in Dutch film. In 1936 the Tobis signed him and Richard Eichberg gave him the leading role of the absolutist ruling Prince Chandra in the monumental two-parter The Tiger of Esnapur and The Indian Tomb . With this he achieved his breakthrough, but it did not last long in National Socialist Germany.

In 1939 he followed the call of director Henry Koster to Hollywood. In America he called himself "Philip Dorn" and from 1940 worked for the MGM production company . He embodied lovers and resistance fighters, ten of his 15 films from this phase are typical anti-Nazi films. Between filming, he traveled with the Freedoms War Bond Show to look after the troops through barracks, military hospitals and air force bases.

After the end of the war, several strokes prevented him from continuing his work. In 1947, van Dongen first played theater on Broadway in The Big Two , opposite Claire Trevor . After his contract with MGM expired, he turned back to the German film industry. He appeared in four German films, but did not make a comeback.

From October 1954 to March 1955 he toured the Netherlands with the comedy Das Himmelbett . A plank fell on his head from a scaffold in Scheveningen . The brain injury he suffered from then on impaired his ability to speak. From then on he lived as a private citizen at his residence in California. There he died of a heart attack .

Van Dongen was married to Cornelia Maria Twilt from November 23, 1921 to May 21, 1930. His marriage to the Rotterdam actress Marianne van Dam on November 30, 1933 resulted in two children. His urn was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery .

Filmography

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 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 423.
  • Ingo Schiweck u. Hans Toonen: Maharajah, Tschetnik, war returnees: the actor Frits van Dongen or Philip Dorn , Osnabrück 2003. ISBN 3-89959-058-9

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dongen, Frits van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dorn, Philip; Niet, Hein van der (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Scheveningen , The Hague, Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1975
Place of death Woodland Hills , Los Angeles, California, United States