Josef Klein (actor)

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Josef Klein as a member of the Raimund Theater in 1893

Josef Klein , occasionally also written to Joseph Klein (born January 3, 1862 in Brno , Moravia , † September 4, 1927 in Berlin ) was an Austro-German actor on stage and in film.

Live and act

theatre

The son of a master brewer grew up in the Austrian part of Moravia and received a two-year training there. In the 1880s, Klein began his wandering through the theaters of the imperial and royal province: starting with Klagenfurt , Klein played in Pressburg and finally in Budapest . There he followed a call to the Meiningen court theater . Klein then toured with his stage troupe to Breslau , Leipzig , St. Petersburg , Moscow , Odessa and Kiev . Along with the founding of the Raimund Theater in Vienna in 1893, Josef Klein reached the Austro-Hungarian capital.

There he made his debut with the part of Count Hammerstein and was an instant success. In the next three years, Klein played an abundance of central theater roles, such as Fiesko and Jaromir. But he also played in folk plays such as " The Surplus", "The Man Without Prejudice" and " Ehre ". Then Klein moved to the Carltheater , where he made his debut on September 15, 1897 in the comedy “ The Children of Excellence ”. In 1899 Klein left Vienna again and moved to Munich to appear at the United Theaters. He made his breakthrough in Germany at the theater there, for example when he was allowed to play the carter Henschel in the Hauptmann play of the same name , the cancer in Georg Hirschfeld's drama " Agnes Jordan " and the Ekdal in Ibsen's Die Wildente . Klein also celebrated some successes at the turn of the century at the Gärtnerplatztheater , for example in Cyrano de Bergerac , the daughter of Mr Fabricius and Captain Webern , where he played Moritz Jäger.

In 1900 Josef Klein arrived in Berlin. Here he became a member of the Lessing Theater ensemble . He made his debut there again in an Ibsen play: as Hellmer in Nora or Ein Puppenheim . Afterwards you could u. a. as Orlando in “ Die Zwillingsschwester ” and as Massimo in “ Wie die Blätter ”. At that time the following assessment was made:

"K., who likes strong, somewhat rough figures best, is a good speaker who expresses every word clearly and clearly. He often develops an almost stormy temperament and strong passion in his performances and is an extremely skilled, stage-confident actor with pleasant manners and movements. "

- Eisenberg's Großes Biographisches Lexikon der Bühne, p. 512

Shortly after Max Reinhardt founded and built up the Small and New Theater, Klein moved there. The years under Reinhardt's aegis were to be the most artistically fruitful of his entire German career. Klein also played the whole range of important roles there. Until he middle of the decade at the Schauspielhaus Dusseldorf from Louise Dumont went, he had such a central theater figures such as Othello , the Petruchio, the pastor of the church field (in the same Anzengruber -Stück), the Karl Moor , the Uriel Acosta , the satin Night asylum and the president played in cabal and love . After his time in Düsseldorf, Klein no longer tied himself firmly to an ensemble, but went on guest tours as a freelance artist for many years. It was not until 1926 that Klein finally returned to Berlin.

Movie

It was Max Reinhardt who brought his ensemble actor in front of the camera. In 1912 and 1913, Josef Klein played in two of Reinhardt's ambitious early works based on Karl Vollmoeller's models , Das Mirakel (as King) and A Venetian Night (as Mestre Mangiabene). In the middle of the First World War , Klein began to film regularly, and in 1918/19 he worked briefly as a director. Joe May , who had cast Klein in his monumental spectacle Veritas vincit , had him stage two episodes of his massive multi-part adventure series The Mistress of the World in 1919 . Also in the Anna Boleyn - film of Reinhardt's pupil Ernst Lubitsch Klein took a small role. His later work until the end of his film career in 1924 are largely meaningless.

Private

Klein, whose brother Rudolf Klein-Rhoden was also an actor, was married to the Dresden actress Elisabeth Hruby , born in 1871, from 1898 .

Filmography

actor

Director

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ September 4th is mentioned in the obituary of the Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch 1928, all other (significantly less credible) sources name September 24th.
personal data
SURNAME Little, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klein, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-German actor on stage and film
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1927
Place of death Berlin