Kurt Kreuger

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Kurt Kreuger , also Knud Kreuger , Kurt Krüger (born July 23, 1916 in Michendorf , Brandenburg , German Reich ; † July 12, 2006 in Los Angeles , USA ) was an American Hollywood actor of German origin.

Life

Kurt Kreuger was born in Michendorf near Potsdam into a wealthy family and grew up mainly in St. Moritz ( Switzerland ). First he began studying economics in London , but soon moved to New York and switched to medicine at Columbia University . When he interrupted his studies without a degree in order to devote himself to acting, his father, a successful businessman, cut him off any further financial support. Kreuger first worked in a New York travel agency in 1939 and took acting lessons at the same time. Then he joined the Provincetown Players theater company in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1940, he stood in front of a film camera for the first time in the war drama Mystery Sea Raider . In 1941 he applied for US citizenship .

Due to his appearance - 1.90 meters tall, blond, slim - he then often played in war films during the Second World War. He often portrayed the hostile, Germanic-Aryan Nazi officers. As a "gorgeous attractive bad guy on duty" he had to die many times in front of the camera. At the same time Kreuger became the third most successful male pin-up star because of his good looks and his elegant roles in the film at the 20th Century Fox studio , right behind the megastars Tyrone Power and John Payne . Kreuger's first really successful film appearance was in Mademoiselle Fifi , a 1944 film based on Guy de Maupassant's short stories, which thematizes the Franco-Prussian War. Later on, Kreuger complained more and more frequently about this one-sided type definition. When he asked the producer Darryl F. Zanuck for a different role, Zanuck answered him in front of witnesses: “Why so impatient? You won't be really good with your looks until you are 50 years old. "

One of the very rare exceptions in which Kreuger was not offered a Nazi role was the 1948 film Unfaithfully Yours (The Unfaithful ) , in which he played Rex Harrison's personal assistant. After a dispute about another one-sided line-up, Kreuger left his studio. He temporarily returned to Europe in 1950 and appeared in several German-speaking strips. In 1953 he played alongside Kristina Söderbaum , Hans Nielsen and Harald Juhnke in Veit Harlan's comedy The Blue Hour . But after a serious traffic accident in Paris in 1955 , he finally went to the United States . The interlude in defeated Germany was criticized for him in the Hollywood industry, which is dominated by Jewish producers. Since he was denied the main roles, he tried to assert himself in prominent supporting roles. This is one of the reasons why he switched to television roles in TV episodes in the 1950s and 1960s. Kreuger had his last film appearance in 1967 in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre . Kurt Kreuger played a total of 53 films.

In the course of his career he has worked with world-famous stars such as Humphrey Bogart , Roberto Rossellini , Ingrid Bergman , Errol Flynn , Rex Harrison , Curd Jürgens , Robert Mitchum and Preston Sturges . In addition to many other honors, he also received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood (1560 Vine Street) in the 1960s .

In parallel to his considerable acting career, Kreuger gained high recognition as a successful real estate agent . So he invested his fees in the purchase of numerous highly sought-after luxury homes in Beverly Hills . Renting or selling to fellow actors and producers earned him an additional million dollar fortune. In addition to his main residence, a villa in Beverly Hills (California), the cosmopolitan acquired a chalet in the fashionable winter sports community of Aspen (Colorado) as a second home . Here he indulged his favorite sport, downhill skiing, for decades. He was an avid skier well into old age . His closest friends included Tarzan actor Lex Barker, fellow actor and director Leni Riefenstahl, and Hollywood photographers of German origin, Frank Diernhammer (since 1962) and Henning von Berg (since 2002).

Kreuger remained a bachelor his entire life . Around 1970 he hired the Asian Sam as a housekeeper / butler . In conservative America, such behavior led to wild guesswork. An occasional fictitious marriage (six years) with a European aristocrat and a son are unproven, very unlikely and certainly belong in the rumor mill of the tabloids. Shortly before his 90th birthday, Kurt Kreuger died of a heart attack after a brief illness at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles .

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. (Note by Reiner Boller: Kurt Kreuger mentioned marriage and his son in conversations.) (Response: Renewed inquiries from closest friends (sole heir Sam lived with him in the same household for almost 40 years; Hollywood photographer Frank Diernhammer and Actress Marlene Parker had known him very well since the 1950s) in the summer of 2007 in LA revealed that these rumors were in no way truthful.)