Kurt Katch

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Kurt Katch , in Germany Kurt Katsch , born Isser Katsch , Katz or Kac (born January 28, 1893 in Grodno , Russian Empire , † August 14, 1958 in Los Angeles , United States ) was a Russian-Polish-American actor.

Life

Early theater and film experience

Isser Katsch (also known as Katz) was originally active in the wine trade. At the beginning of the First World War , Katsch was drafted and served in the Russian tsarist army. In the same year 1914 he was taken prisoner by Germany. After his release, Katsch attended the Max Reinhardt School in Berlin and made his debut in 1917 as Kurt Katsch at the Bremen City Theater . He then received engagements at Berlin's Meinhard-Bernauer-Bühnen and Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater , where he took on small and medium-sized roles from 1920. For example, Katsch could be seen as a pupil in Faust , as Jack in Pandora's Box and as Artemjew in Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse . In the following years Katsch appeared at the Münchner Kammerspiele , the Frankfurt Schauspielhaus , the Berlin Saltenburg theaters and Vienna's Raimundtheater . Katsch's role subjects were powerful and often ambiguous to negative characters; so he succeeded as Falstaff, as Tartuffe or as Richard III. One of his other star roles was Shylock, but Katsch's interpretation of Sergeant Grischa in a stage version of Arnold Zweig's The Dispute about Sergeant Grischa was also praised .

Since the end of the war in 1918, the bald and compact actor appeared sporadically in front of the camera, but the cinema was of minor importance in Katsch's career until his exile in the USA. In a letter dated May 22, 1929 to Alwin Kronacher , the artistic director of the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt , he informed him: “[...] I've learned a lot and can also exist in Berlin, but I go to you blindfolded! [..] I'm tired of Berlin despite the good income (from film)! [..] I can no longer bear the Berlin celebrity craze! ”From September 1st, 1929 Katsch was engaged as an actor with the art subject“ Character roles and roles according to individuality ”at the Städtische Bühnen in Frankfurt. He was dismissed on May 22, 1933 on the basis of the Law to Restore the Professional Civil Service (BBG) .

Katsch joined the Jewish Cultural Association after being banned from working on German theaters . In its first Berlin performance on October 1, 1933, Katsch played the title role in Lessing's Nathan the Wise, directed by Karl Loewenberg . Finally Katsch went to Poland, continued his theater work there and also appeared in front of the camera in two Yiddish-language films. In June 1937, on the way to the USA, he gave a guest performance in Paris with the "Grischa" material. Resident in the United States since August 20, 1937, Kurt Katsch also played in Yiddish-language plays in New York (1937 in The Brothers Ashkenazi , 1939 in Parnosseh ), there under the direction of the theater maker Maurice Schwartz . In the late autumn of 1939, Max Reinhardt's former right-hand man, Otto Preminger , cast him in the anti-Nazi play Margin for Error with the role of the German consul Karl Baumer, a part that Preminger had previously played himself.

Film and television work in Hollywood

Resident in Hollywood since 1941 , Katsch Americanized himself in "Katch". When the United States entered World War II (December 1941), Katch became a very busy supporting actor. He was cast “regularly as a brutally dumb, vicious parade villain on duty, whether in the colorful fairy tale and costume adventure à la“ Ali Baba and the 40 robbers ”or in anti-Nazi propaganda like“ Berlin Correspondent ”,“ Ambassador in Moscow "," The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler "," Die Wacht am Rhein "and" Rendezvous 24 "." Katch mostly had to be content with very small roles of seconds to minutes in length. His last major film role also followed this cast cliché: Katch was, alongside Marlon Brando , Dean Martin and Montgomery Clift, a German camp commandant in the world war drama " The Young Lions ". Kurt Katch has also appeared in a plethora of unremarkable US television productions in the last decade of his life, including the first film version of Casino Royale , in which he once again had a disgusting villain.

Filmography

Movies unless otherwise stated

  • 1918: The Mexican
  • 1919: The mysterious sphere
  • 1919: The glowing chamber
  • 1919: The Song of the Norns
  • 1920: The messenger of death
  • 1920: your greatest trick
  • 1921: The open grave
  • 1921: An unsolved case
  • 1921: The Chicago Inn
  • 1922: Between day and dream
  • 1922: wilderness
  • 1923: The son of the galley convict
  • 1923: quarantine
  • 1923: Dudu, a human fate
  • 1928: The band of robbers
  • 1929: The League of Three
  • 1929: The country without women
  • 1936: Al Chejt
  • 1937: Kties Chaf
  • 1941: Man at Large
  • 1942: Berlin Correspondent
  • 1942: Order of sabotage in Berlin (Desperate Journey)
  • 1942: Ambassador to Moscow (Mission to Moscow)
  • 1943: Spy on the Orient Express (Background to Danger)
  • 1943: Rebellion in Trollness (Edge of Darkness)
  • 1943: The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler
  • 1943: The Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine)
  • 1943: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
  • 1944: The Purple Heart
  • 1944: The Seventh Cross (The Seventh Cross)
  • 1944 The Mask of Dimitrios (The Mask of Dimitrios)
  • 1944: The Conspirators
  • 1944: The Mummy's Curse
  • 1945: Salome Where She Danced
  • 1945: Rendezvous 24
  • 1946: Angel on My Shoulder
  • 1946: Strange Journey
  • 1947: Klara Schumann's great love (Song of Love)
  • 1950: The Clock (TV series; episode The Caller )
  • 1952: Robert Montgomery Presents (three episodes of the TV series)
  • 1953: Secret of the Incas
  • 1954: The Caliph's Daughter (The Adventures of Haji Baba)
  • 1954: Casino Royale (TV movie)
  • 1955: Space Patrol (three episodes of the TV series)
  • 1955: Abbott and Costello as mummy robbers (Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy)
  • 1955: Just You Alone (Never Say Goodbye)
  • 1956: Hot Cars
  • 1957: The Beast of Budapest
  • 1958: The Gift of Love
  • 1958: The Young Lions (The Young Lions)

literature

  • Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 280.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ in older, mainly Anglo-American sources, the year 1896 is still incorrectly stated
  2. ↑ Quoted from the Institute for Urban History (Frankfurt am Main) : Kurt Katsch personnel files, call number 10.030
  3. ↑ Katsch and Löwenberg probably knew each other from Frankfurt, where Löwenberg worked as Alwin Kronacher's assistant and was also dismissed due to the BBG.
  4. ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 280.
personal data
SURNAME Katch, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Katsch, Kurt; Katsch, Isser (maiden name); Katz, Kurt; Kac, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian-Polish-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Grodno , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1958
Place of death Los Angeles , United States