Jens Keith

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Jens Keith (actually: Otto Precht ) (born June 21, 1898 in Stralsund ; † July 27, 1958 in Berlin ) was a German dancer , choreographer and actor .

career

Since his training with Rudolph von Laban , by 1922 at the latest, he has performed under his stage name Jens Keith. He participated in performances by Laban and Kurt Jooss , was dance master at the theater in Essen, belonged to the ensemble of the Berlin State Opera and went on tours with other solo dancers ( Die Sechs von der Staatsoper ). Keith didn't start working in the film industry until the early 1930s. In a period of around twenty years he took part in more than thirty films, mainly in the role of choreographer. His film debut as a choreographer was The Blonde Nightingale , a musical comedy by Johannes Meyer , but he was already involved as an actor in The Tiger in 1930 with the same director.

Keith was arrested in 1936/37 while he was working as a dance master at UFA and choreographing film ballets and dance scenes in entertainment films while working on the film about Fanny Elßler and accused him of having a sexual relationship with a man. Thanks to the deposit of a large bail, he was released from custody, Hans Weidemann had stood up for him. Keith fled to Paris, but was picked up again by the German authorities in 1940.

After a short prison sentence he was allowed to work again at the Metropoltheater and was then engaged at the Städtische Oper Berlin , where he choreographed various ballets and ballet evenings, including Richard Strauss' Josephs Legende , Boris Blacher’s Chiarina (1950) and Wolfgang Fortner’s The White Rose ( 1946 ) 1951).

Filmography

choreography

Acting roles

literature

  • Andreas Pretzel : Victims of National Socialism with reservation: homosexual men in Berlin after 1945 , Lit Verlag Münster-Hamburg-London, 2002, p. 58.
  • Horst Koegler , Helmut Günther (Author) : Keith, Jens . In: Reclam's Ballet Lexicon . Reclam, Stuttgart 1984, p. 239.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Keith, Jens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Precht, Otto (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer, choreographer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Stralsund
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1958
Place of death Berlin