Géza Herczeg

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Géza Herczeg (born March 1, 1888 in Nagykanizsa , Austria-Hungary , † February 20, 1954 in Rome , Italy ) was a Hungarian-Austrian journalist and writer.

Life

Géza Herczeg, son of the landowner Alexander Herczeg, attended grammar school in Budapest and then studied law and political science at the Royal Hungarian University of Sciences until 1910 . As early as 1906, he worked as a journalist, initially for Hungarian, later also for Austrian, German and Italian daily newspapers. As a war correspondent, he reported on the Italo-Turkish War from Tripoli in 1911/12 and on the Balkan Wars in 1912/13 for the Wiener Neue Freie Presse (NFP). From 1914 to 1918 he reported on the scenes of the First World War for NFP , Berliner Tageblatt , Pester Lloyd and A Nap (“The Day”) , which was also published in Pest . He processed his reports into several books.

From 1919 to 1922 Herczeg worked in the press and information department of the Hungarian Prime Minister . At the same time he served as a delegate of the Hungarian government in Italy in 1920 and was Ministerial Councilor of the Kingdom of Hungary, newly established by Admiral Miklós Horthy .

From 1921 to 1924 he was editor of the Neue Freie Presse , then from 1924 to 1928 publisher and editor-in-chief of the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung , at the same time editor of the Extrablatts and the Mittags-Zeitung in Vienna.

Since 1928 Herczeg worked as a freelance playwright. In 1929 he wrote the comedy Ja, Peter! With Robert Forster-Larrinaga (1880–1932; under the common pseudonym “FLGH”) . 24 hours in 3 acts . In 1931 Herczeg's comedy Der Spiegel appeared .

However, his libretti for musical comedies and revues were particularly successful , such as his libretto, written together with Karl Farkas in 1929, for Robert Katscher's Die Wunder-Bar: A game in nightlife . The operetta was premiered in February 1930 at the Wiener Kammerspiele , ran in 1931 with Al Jolson in the leading role on Broadway , was filmed in Hollywood in 1934 under the title Wonder Bar (director: Lloyd Bacon , choreography: Busby Berkeley ) and included the music title If Elisabeth didn't have such beautiful legs, she would also have a veritable hit .

Herczeg then wrote the libretto (then reworked by Karl Farkas and Fritz Grünbaum ) for Robert Katscher's operetta Der Traumexpreß ( premiered in 1931 at the Theater an der Wien ), then in 1932 with Robert Klein and Marcellus Schiffer the operetta libretto 100 Meter Glück for Mischa Spoliansky and Leo Straus wrote the lyrics for the revue Der tanzende Shylock by Erwin Straus , in 1933 with Kurt Robitschek the lyrics for the revue Wiener Illustrierte (music by Wilhelm Grosz ) and, together with Farkas and Hubert Marischka, the lyrics for Richard Fall's musical parade Oh, you mein Österreich! (after Roda Rodas Schwank Der Feldherrnhügel ), 1934 together with Stefan Zagon ( István Zágon ; 1893–1975) and Karl Farkas the libretto for Michael Krasznay-Krausz '(1897–1940) The Yellow Lily (based on the 1912 stage play Sárga liliom by Lajos Bíró , 1880–1948) and finally in 1936 the libretto for Emmerich Kálmán's operetta Kaiserin Josephine with Paul Knepler .

At the personal request of the Italian "Duce" Mussolini , whom he had already met in an interview in the 1920s, in 1931 he translated the drama Campo di maggio, written by Mussolini together with Giovacchino Forzano , about the last days of Napoléon into Hungarian (under the title Száz nap ) and into German. The German version was performed in 1933 under the title Hundert Tage at the Burgtheater in Vienna and was a surprise success; In 1935 a film was made under the direction of Franz Wenzler with Werner Krauß as Napoléon and Gustaf Gründgens as Fouché , in which Herczeg was not mentioned due to his Jewish origins. Herczeg translated the thematically related novel Das Mädchen von Sankt Helena by " Arnold Hoellriegel " in 1934 under the title Szent Ilona. Napoleon utolsó szerelme into Hungarian.

Herczeg, who had already worked on the film version of the Wunder-Bar in Hollywood in 1934 , lived permanently in New York City and Los Angeles after the annexation of Austria and worked as a screenwriter. For the screenplay for William Dieterle's Das Leben des Emile Zola ( The Life of Emile Zola ), written together with Norman Reilly Raine and Heinz Herald , he received the Oscar for best adapted screenplay at the 1938 Academy Awards ; the biopic was also named best film . Further treatments and scripts followed. With Jay Gorney he worked on operettas, which were not completed; other musicals such as Sisters Inc. (1942) were not performed. The musical Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston , written with Alfred Grünwald and composed by Robert Stolz , was shown on Broadway in September 1945.

For the US Office of War Information , the film Settlement in Shanghai ( The Shanghai Gesture ) was made in 1941 under the direction of Josef von Sternberg, based on a script written jointly by Herczeg, Karl Vollmoeller , Jules Furthman and von Sternberg. Herczeg's piece Der Prozess ohne Ende , which was written with Heinz Herald in the late 1930s . The case of Tisza Eszlar was published in 1947 under the English name The Burning Bush , filmed in 1948 (under the title The Vicious Circle ) by W. Lee Wilder and directed in 1949 by Erwin Piscator at the Dramatic Workshop in New York. One of Herczeg's last film projects was The Life of Mahatma Gandhi , which was to be shot in India in 1953 under the direction of Gabriel Pascal .

Since 1924 Herczeg was married to the Viennese actress Leopoldine Konstantin . After emigrating to the USA, the marriage ended in divorce in the late 1930s.

Works

Book publications

  • Sarajevotói Lodzig . Dick, Budapest 1915
    • German edition: From Serajewo to Lodz. War impressions from Géza Herczeg . G. Müller, Munich 1916
  • Végig Szerbián. Az osztrák-magyar, a német és a bolgár hadsereggel a balkáni harctéren . Athenaeum, Budapest 1916
  • Avanti… Képek az olasz harctérrol . Athenaeum, Budapest 1916
  • “U” Háborús képek a haditengerészetrol . Athenaeum, Budapest 1917
  • The Book of Hungary and Budapest , Volume IV of the series What is not in the “Baedeker” . Piper Verlag, Munich 1928 (with drawings by Eugen Feiks and a foreword by Ludwig Hirschfeld )
  • Béla Kun, a historical grimace . Publishing house for cultural policy, Berlin 1928
    • Hungarian edition: Kun Béla. Törtenelmi grimasz . Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1929

Libretti and stage works

  • Yes peter! 24 hours in 3 acts (1929)
  • The Wonder Bar (1930)
  • The mirror (1931)
  • The Dream Express (1931)
  • 100 meters of happiness (1932)
  • The dancing Shylock (1932)
  • Oh, you my Austria! (1933)
  • Wiener Illustrierte (1933)
  • The Yellow Lily: Hungarian Rhapsody (1934)
  • Empress Josephine (1936)
  • Sisters Inc. (1942) - with Alfred Aiken, Felix Ferry, Edgar J. MacGregor
  • Babe in the House - with Leyla Georgie
  • Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston (1945) - with Alfred Grünwald and Leonard L. Levinson

Scripts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Archives.nypl.org .
  2. ↑ http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_013153-1/208  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / issuu.com  
personal data
SURNAME Herczeg, Géza
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian-Austrian journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Nagykanizsa , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1954
Place of death Rome , Italy