Howard Vernon

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Howard Vernon (actually Mario Walter Lippert ; * July 15, 1908 in Baden AG (Aargau) , Switzerland ; † July 25, 1996 in Issy-les-Moulineaux , France ) was a Swiss- French actor with many years of international activity in roles of sadistic Noble villains and cold Nazi uniform wearers as well as later career in European trash film .

The early years in the hotel business

The son of the German hotelier Julius Joseph Lippert and the German Doris Hermine Frieda geb. Häffner went to school (or business school) in Bern and Nice , where the perfectly German and English-speaking artist also learned French. He then switched to the hotel industry. From 1932 to 1934, Howard Vernon worked at the reception of various luxury hotels in Switzerland ( Lucerne , St. Moritz ), France and Egypt .

First contacts to acting

Then he went to Berlin and trained as a classical actor there. Back in Zurich, he continued his apprenticeship under the actor Erwin Kalser , who had fled to Switzerland , and made his first (still tiny) theater appearances. Vernon , who moved to London for some time in 1938, celebrated an early small success with a specially rehearsed stage number until he was brought to Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War II and hired as an entertainer at the 'Casino de Paris'. Subsequently engaged in the revue theater 'Alcazar', he was particularly successful with the revue 'Beauté des femmes' until late autumn 1940. During the occupation, Vernon, who was safe as a neutral citizen, stayed in Paris. a. English lessons and performed at various cabarets in the capital.

Beginning of the film career

Vernon's thirst for adventure and vagabonding drove him back to Great Britain during the war, where he hired himself as a spokesperson for the BBC in London in 1944 . Immediately after the liberation of Paris he was back on the stages there and achieved a respectable success with his role as the German in the dramatic play 'Un ami viendra ce soir' . Vernon repeated this role a few months later in the film, in which from 1945 he was supposed to play tons of small and medium-sized roles, occasionally also leading roles. Above all, his well - mannered German Wehrmacht lieutenant Werner von Ebrennac, who loved French culture, in Jean-Pierre Melville's implementation of the Vercors novel “Le silence de la mer” made him well known in France: It was to be his most haunting achievement.

In the following years Vernon worked mainly in French, but also in some Spanish productions. When West German cinema began to show interest in him in the mid-1950s, the Munich film agency Palz took him under contract. Vernon was henceforth subscribed to every kind of perfectly formed villain with ice cream gloves through his role typification. Again and again he played ice-cold criminals, whose arrogance seemed written on their faces. The Swiss were also regularly seen playing Nazi officers or simple Wehrmacht soldiers.

Career as a trash movie star

From 1965 his career took a decisive turn. Vernon, who had already played a central role in Jesús Franco Manera 's first horror film hit Gritos en la noche four years earlier , in the next decade and a half focused primarily on working in cheap and sometimes third-rate horror films, which over the years was part of a loyal fan base achieved cult film status, as well as voyeuristic, sadomasochistic sex films - staged by trash film specialist Franco Manera. The Spaniard entrusted Vernon almost continuously with leading roles and had him play sadistic dark men and gloomy castle owners as well as sinister, unscrupulous and thoroughly amoral criminal geniuses, demonic doctors, torturers, creepy counts and pseudoscientists. Under his maiden name Mario Lippert , he often worked as a set photographer for these inexpensive films made with very small technical crews .

In addition to his participation in cult films such as The Night of the Open Coffins , Girls for Intimate Hours and Women for Cell Block 9 , Vernon has repeatedly appeared in intellectual films such as Jean-Marie Straub's The Death of Empedocles and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Bizarre -Surreal movie fairy tale delicatessen .

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ to less; most biographies indicate 1914
  2. ↑ Michael Gautier: Howard Vernon. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland. June 29, 2011, accessed December 9, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Vernon, Howard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lippert, Mario Walter (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Baden AG
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1996
Place of death Issy-les-Moulineaux , France