John Kitzmiller

John Kitzmiller (born December 4, 1913 in Battle Creek , Michigan , † February 23, 1965 in Rome ) was an American actor .

Life

Training and debut in Italian cinema

John Kitzmiller was born in 1913 to John and Mary Kitzmiller in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the American Midwest . The African American grew up with a sister in his hometown and attended the local high school, where he was a member of the chemistry club. In 1932, Kitzmiller graduated from school with the aim of becoming a chemical engineer. After completing his engineering degree, he served in the US Army as an "Engineer Captain" and took part in the liberation of Italy towards the end of the Second World War. During this time, both of his parents died and Kitzmiller, like many black US soldiers, preferred not to return to his homeland, where strict racial segregation prevailed. In 1947 the American was discovered by the Italian film producer Carlo Ponti while playing cards with his army colleagues . When Ponti suggested Kitzmiller take on a role in a film, the latter started to laugh out loud, because he had neither come into contact with acting before, nor had he given a thought to working as an actor. But it was precisely this laugh that earned him his first film role in Luigi Zampa's war drama Living in Peace . The film is about two escaped American prisoners of war (played by Heinrich Bode and Gal Moore ) who seek refuge in an Italian village.

For the 1.93 m tall John Kitzmiller, further roles followed in the Italian film , which at the time was indulging in neorealism . Just a year after his film debut, he received his first leading role in Alberto Lattuada's Without Mercy (1948). Here Kitzmiller can be seen as the US occupation soldier Jerry, who falls in love with the destitute and criminal Italian Angela (played by Carla Del Poggio ). The amour fou between a black man and a white woman, considered scandalous in the 1940s , received little attention from critics. In 1950, Kitzmiller worked again with Lattuada and Del Poggio on the tragic comedy Lights of the Varieté , for which Federico Fellini wrote the script and co-directed for the first time. As the only black actor in Italy, Kitzmiller enjoyed a kind of monopoly, which earned him great fame, and he worked repeatedly with directors such as Sergio Corbucci ( Insel der Sünde , 1952; Terra straniera , 1953; Brutal Violence , 1954) and Renato Polselli in the 1950s ( Ultimo perdono , 1952; Delitto al luna park , 1952; Il grande addio , 1954) together. As early as 1951, the November issue of the US magazine Ebony said that his face was as familiar to Italian moviegoers as that of Gregory Peck in the USA. Kitzmiller was often committed to the part of the black who had to fight against racial prejudice.

Triumph in Cannes

Kitzmiller's greatest success came in 1956 when he shot France Štiglic ' The Valley of Peace, the first film outside of Italy. In the tradition of René Cléments Verbotene Spiele (1952), the Yugoslav war drama focuses on a group of young war orphans who break out of an institution to find a mystical, peaceful valley. They are supported by an Afro-American pilot who crashed his plane behind enemy lines.

The Valley of Peace was featured in the competition at the 10th Cannes Film Festival in 1957 , where Kitzmiller was the first African-American actor to receive the festival's best actor award. In his victory, he prevailed against such renowned colleagues as Gary Cooper ( Alluring Temptation ) or Max von Sydow ( The Seventh Seal ) .

The triumph in Cannes was followed by role offers outside of Italy. In 1958 he acted in Vincent Sherman's drama The Naked Earth , in which Richard Todd and Juliette Gréco try to build a new life as farmers in Africa. However, the film set Kitzmiller on the racial stereotype of an African "native", whereupon he turned back to Italian cinema.

Four years and ten wacky Italian films later, Kitzmiller was back in English-language cinema. In James Bond, Dr. No (1962), the beginning of the James Bond cinema series, he slipped into the role of the nervous islander Quarrel at the side of Sean Connery and Ursula Andress . With his help, Bond arrives on the island of Dr. No (played by Joseph Wiseman ), where Quarrel has to pay with his life for the research carried out there. In 1963 Kitzmiller got a supporting role in the German- Yugoslav horror film The Curse of the Green Eyes by Ákos Ráthonyi , which was followed in the same year by the title role in Géza by Radványi's uncle Toms Hütte , a film adaptation of the novel by Harriet Beecher-Stowe . The part of Uncle Tom was Kitzmiller's last film role. In the same year, two months after his marriage, he died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 51 . Although he has appeared in over forty European film and television roles, the American actor is little known in his home country.

Filmography (selection)

• 1947: Living in Peace (Vivere in pace)
• 1948: Without Mercy (Senza pietà)
• 1950: Lights of the Varieté (Luci del varietà)
• 1952: Island of Sin (La peccatrice dell'isola)
• 1952: On the sword's point (A fil di spada)
• 1953: hot goods for Marseille (Quai des blondes)
• 1954: Brutal violence (Acque amare)
• 1956: The Valley of Peace (Dolina miru)
• 1958: And the executioner in the neck (Vite perdute)
• 1958: Aphrodite - goddess of love (Afrodite, dea dell'amore)
• 1958: The Naked Earth
• 1959: Hello, I am your murderer (Sursis pour un vivant)
• 1960: Pirate Coast (I pirati della costa)
• 1960: Arms for San Salvador (Gli avventurieri dei tropici)
• 1962: The son of Captain Blood (Il figlio del capitano Blood)
• 1962: James Bond chases Dr. No (Dr. No)
• 1963: Tiger of the Seas (La tigre dei sette mari)
• 1964: The curse of the green eyes
• 1965: Uncle Tom's hut

Awards

• 1957: Actor Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for The Valley of Peace

Web links

• John Kitzmiller in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} cf. Chuby, Sarah: Movie buff discovers Battle Creek man was a screen star , The Associated Press State & Local Wire, February 21, 2005, BC cycle, Entertainment News, State and Regional
2. ↑ cf. Profile at jamesbond007.net ( Memento of the original from July 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (French) 
3. ↑ cf. "James Bond 007 - The Ultimate Collection" (CD-ROM edition), Eidos, 1996
4. ↑ cf. Katz, Ephraim: The Macmillan international film encyclopedia . New York: Macmillan, 1994.- ISBN 0-333-61601-4