Harry Froboess

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Harry Froboess (* 23. October 1899 as Friedrich Harald August Froboess in Dresden , † 12. January 1985 in Baar (Switzerland) ) was a German stuntman and Artist .

Childhood and youth

According to his own statements, his father wanted him to do gymnastics and his mother to swim, so he simply combined both sports. As early as 1913, he obtained a certificate of championship in boy jumping and drew attention to himself in the late 1910s and early 1920s with spectacular jumps from towers and bridges. At the Olympic Games in 1924 he took part in diving .

Act

The early film industry took notice of him through his athletic achievements and made him double an actor . Unlike most of his colleagues, Froboess proceeded with a great deal of planning in terms of a safe and smooth process. In the slapstick of the silent films jumps or falls were an integral part. For example, Froboess doubled Buster Keaton or Stan Laurel . Even outside of this genre and later sound film , he was most committed to jump or fall scenes. He made his breakthrough with the Harry Hill films . In Harry Hill's Hunt for Death , Froboess fell together with a horse from a breaking bridge into a 60 m deep ravine, which earned him a lot of attention and promoted his stunt career. Even after the silent film era, he doubled stars like Humphrey Bogart , Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo . Froboess is said to have appeared in 412 films.

From the late 1940s Froboess appeared less as a stuntman and more as an artist. Together with his partner and later wife Hertha, he toured in the USA and other countries as an artist or participant in water shows. Part of the program were of course various artistic jumps but also artistic performances, for example as a living cannonball .

In the Guinness Book of Records , Froboess is listed as the world record holder in diving. On June 22, 1936, he is said to have jumped from the airship Graf Zeppelin from a height of 110 m into Lake Constance . However, some sources assume that this never happened and that it was just a marketing campaign .

In the 1960s, the couple moved from the USA back to Europe in Switzerland. As Froebess only received a small American pension and he was not entitled to a German pension from his activities for the UFA , he and his wife kept themselves afloat in their place of residence in Baar, Switzerland, with slide shows about their careers. He also published his biography Happy Survived . To promote this appropriately, on his 70th birthday, he jumped from a helicopter into Lake Zurich from a height of 40 m.

Filmography (selection)

Web links and sources

personal data
SURNAME Froboess, Harry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Froboess, Friedrich Harald August (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German stuntman and artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1985
Place of death Baar (Switzerland)