Leonard Steckel

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Leonard Steckel , born in Leonhard Steckel , (born January 18, 1901 in Knihinin , Galicia , † February 9, 1971 at Aitrang , Germany ) was a German actor , radio play speaker and director .

Life

Origin and first successes

Leonard Steckel was the son of the railway administrator Markus Steckel and his wife Eva Bazar. After the early death of his father, he grew up with his mother's parents in Berlin . Here he attended the Kölln high school , where he graduated from high school.

He took acting lessons from Paul Bildt and received his first engagement in 1921 at the New People's Theater on Köpenickerstraße. Steckel stayed here until 1923 and in the same year played with the theater group “Die Truppe” in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and at the world premiere of Georg Kaiser's Side by Side . In the 1923/24 season he worked at the Lustspielhaus , 1924/25 at the Prussian State Theater , 1925/26 at the Deutsches Theater , 1926/27 at the Volksbühne , 1927/28 at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz , 1928/29 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm , 1929 / 30 again at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz and from 1930 to 1932 again at the Volksbühne.

Steckel mainly played in modern pieces of his time and embodied Shaak in Paquets Fahnen (world premiere in 1924 at the Volksbühne) and the mad doctor in Toller's Oops, we live! (1927). In 1928 he directed the performance of Franz Jung's Homesickness in the studio of the Piscator stage for the first time . In 1929 he appeared in Aribert Wascher and Rosa Valetti's cabaret Larifari. In 1933 he undertook a tour of Scandinavia with the operetta Madame Dubarry by Karl Millöcker . Since 1929 worked Steckel also in films, including unnamed in the classic  M .

In exile

From 1927 he was married to the dancer and later writer Elfriede Kuhr, who carried the stage name Jo Mihaly . His daughter Anja was born in February 1933. After Hitler came to power as a “Jew”, he was able to save himself to Switzerland in May 1933 through an engagement at the Schauspielhaus Zürich .

In Zurich, Steckel took part in numerous classical and modern plays and made a name for himself as a theater director from 1935 . He preferred the works of authors who were not allowed to be performed in National Socialist Germany, such as Franz Werfel , Jean Giraudoux , George Bernhard Shaw , T. S. Eliot , Thornton Wilder , Bertolt Brecht , Arthur Schnitzler , Eugene O'Neill and Marcel Pagnol . Among other things, he directed the first exile performance of Brecht's The Good Man of Sezuan in 1943 .

After the war, the victorious powers initially did not allow him to return to Germany. Steckel continued to work at the Zürcher Schauspielhaus, where he staged the world premiere of Max Frisch's Count Öderland in 1951 and staged Hans Henny Jahnn's drama Poverty, Wealth, Humans and Animals . It was only after the intervention of Federal President Theodor Heuss that Steckel received an entry permit and a German passport.

In the Federal Republic

In 1952 he brought the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin with Kiss me Kate , the first American musical in Germany performed. He later celebrated successes with it in Hamburg. In 1955, Steckel married the Munich photo agent Hermi Steckel (1916–2010). In the 1950s he could be seen mainly on Berlin and Munich stages, in addition in Bochum, Münster, Basel, Hamburg and 1963 to 1964 at the Salzburg Festival . From 1958 to 1959 he directed the theater on Kurfürstendamm. In addition, he gave several guest productions.

Steckel was often represented in small film roles in the 1950s, where he mostly played people of great respect such as doctors and professors. He also took part in radio plays, for example in 1959 in a six-part series as Kommissar Maigret , which the SWF produced under the direction of Gert Westphal . His teammates were u. a. Heinz Schimmelpfennig and Annedore Huber-Knaus . Once he took over the direction. In 1966 Steckel celebrated one last big success as a theater actor at the Schauspielhaus Zürich in the role of Schwitter in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Meteor .

death

Honorary grave of Leonard Steckel in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

In 1971 Steckel planned a four-month world tour through 16 countries with Brecht's Mr. Puntila and his servant Matti , which was to begin in June. However, on February 9, shortly after his 70th birthday, Leonard Steckel lost his life in the Aitrang railway accident .

His grave is in the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend . By decision of the Berlin Senate , the last resting place of Leonard Steckel (grave location: II-WC-34) was dedicated in 1997 for twenty years as an honorary grave of the State of Berlin . The decision to extend the dedication is pending (as of November 2019).

Filmography

Radio plays

Director

  • 1954: Anna Christie
  • 1956: Caesar and the Phoenix
  • 1956: Kiss me, Katchen! (Theater recording)
  • 1956: The Rico brothers
  • 1956: Don't worry, they'll get together (theater recording)
  • 1959: The Parisian (theater recording)
  • 1960: Miss Julie (after August Strindberg )

speaker

  • 1953: Carl Zuckmayer : Ulla Winblad or Music and Life of Carl Michael Bellmann - Director: Walter Ohm (radio play - BR / RB / SWF)
  • 1953: Pilatus - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1953: Merlin - Director: Wilhelm Semmelroth
  • 1953: Tonight in Samarkand - Director: Heinz-Günter Stamm
  • 1953: The False Guardian Angel - Director: Heinz-Günter Stamm
  • 1953: Affair Blum - author and director: Robert Adolf Stemmle
  • 1954: The Toupee Artist - Director: Fränze Roloff
  • 1954: My heart is in the highlands - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1954: Beatrice and Juana (by Günter Eich ) - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1954: In Praise of Waste - Directed by Ludwig Cremer
  • 1954: Stopover - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1954: The Passenger from November 1st - Director: Karl Peter Biltz
  • 1955: The slaughter of the innocent - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1955: The cold light (based on the play of the same name by Carl Zuckmayer ) - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1955: Memories - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1955: The Priest and the Robbers - Director: Peter Hamel
  • 1955: Critical events in the state of Pelargonia - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1956: Dirty Hands - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1956: The return journey - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1956: John Every or How Much is Man Worth - Director: Werner Finck
  • 1956: who is the thief? - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1956: Juvenile Court - Director: Heinz Schimmelpfennig
  • 1957: Der Roßdieb zu Fünsing - Director: Otto Kurth
  • 1957: Mrs. Maigret as a detective - director: Otto Kurth
  • 1957: The Secret - Director: Wilhelm Semmelroth
  • 1958: Fair of Life (4 parts) - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Brandenburg Gate (after Hans Scholz ) - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Maigret and the Groschenschenke - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Maigret and his scruples - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Maigret and his revolver - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Maigret and the Unknown - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1959: Maigret and the Yellow Dog - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1960: Maigret and the Beanstalk - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1960: The dance out of line - Director: Edward Rothe
  • 1960: Thomas G. Masaryk: The truth is lonely - Director: Ludwig Cremer
  • 1960: Protocols - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1961: Major Barbara - Director: Walter Knaus
  • 1961: Flags Need Lies - Director: Alexander Pestel
  • 1961: The Chain - Director: Wolfgang Spier
  • 1963: A gentlemen's evening without Socrates - Director: Gert Westphal
  • 1963: Meeting Point Past - Director: Ulrich Gerhardt
  • 1964: Vittoria Accorombona - Director: Otto Kurth
  • 1964: Drums in the Night (after Bertolt Brecht ) - Director: Günter Bommert
  • 1964: Symptoms - Director: Günther Sauer
  • 1964: Me, the priest and the pallbearers - Director: Raoul Wolfgang Schnell
  • 1970: Birthday Party - Director: Fritz Schröder-Jahn

Synchronous rollers (selection)

actor Film / series role
Charles Laughton Playing with Death (1st Synchro) Earl Janoth
Hugh Griffith Ben Hur Sheikh Ilderim
Leon Askin One two Three Peripetchikoff
Ronald Adam A city holds its breath prime minister

Remarks

  1. Date of birth according to IMDb , Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film , Brockhaus Enzyklopädie u. a. Others, such as B. Filmportal.de and the two biographies listed on the web links state the date of birth: January 8, 1901.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Died - Leonard Steckel . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1971, p. 166 ( online ). Quote: "Last week, Steckel was among the dead in the Aitrang train accident."
  2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 495.
  3. Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 84; Retrieved on November 18, 2019. Submission - for information - about the recognition and further preservation of graves of well-known and deserving personalities as honorary graves of Berlin . (PDF) Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 13/2017 of September 12, 1997, Section B, p. 3; accessed on November 18, 2019.
  4. German synchronous files. In: synchronkartei.de. Retrieved October 5, 2016 .