Fritz Leiber senior

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Fritz Leiber as Caesar with Theda Bara as Cleopatra (1917)

Fritz Reuter Leiber senior (born January 31, 1882 in Chicago , Illinois , † October 14, 1949 in Pacific Palisades , California ) was an American stage and film actor.

life and career

Leiber was the son of Albrecht Leiber, who emigrated from Baden-Baden to the United States in 1850 , fought in the American Civil War and achieved the rank of captain .

Fritz Leiber began his acting career in 1902 and quickly became an important stage actor of his era, who was particularly successful as a performer in numerous Shakespeare roles. In the course of his long career he played King Lear and Hamlet, among others . In a 1916 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet , he played Mercutio alongside Francis X. Bushman . At times Leiber even had his own acting troupe Fritz Leiber & Co. During the silent film era, Leiber also achieved fame as a film actor: he embodied Caesar in the lavish Cleopatra film from 1917 with silent film legend Theda Bara in the title role; also King Solomon in the monumental film The Queen of Sheba with Betty Blythe . In his sound films of the 1930s and 1940s, however, Leiber mostly had to be content with small to medium-sized supporting roles.

The actor, who turned gray at an early age, played mainly figures such as priests, professors, doctors and officers because of his serious charisma. Leiber was seen as a stubborn opponent of the scientist Louis Pasteur in the Oscar-winning biopic Louis Pasteur (1935), he also played Franz Liszt in Phantom of the Opera (1943) and a prison pastor alongside Charlie Chaplin in Monsieur Verdoux - The Woman Killer of Paris ( 1947). By the time he died, Leiber had made over 60 film appearances. He died of a heart attack in 1949 at the age of 67, leaving behind his wife, Virginia Bronson, to whom he had been married since 1910. His son was the well-known science fiction writer Fritz Leiber Jr. , with whom he also appeared together in William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Leiber: Leiber Chronicle. History of a Swabian-Alemannic family. Volume II , 3rd edition, p. 266
  2. ^ Fritz Leiber at the New York Times
personal data
SURNAME Leiber, Fritz senior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leiber, Fritz Reuter senior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American stage and film actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1949
Place of death Pacific Palisades , California