Lionel Stander

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Lionel Jay Stander (born January 11, 1908 in the Bronx , New York City , † November 30, 1994 in Los Angeles ) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as butler, cook and chauffeur "Max" in the crime series Hart . In the 1940s and 1950s he was a victim of the American authorities during campaigns against actors who were supposedly or actually politically leftist.

Life

Stander was born into a Russian-Jewish family. After finishing school, he began studying at the University of North Carolina. When he was 19, he was on a theater stage and decided to become an actor. In addition to a successful theater career, thanks to his deep voice, he also became a star on the radio. In 1932 he came to film and made short films in New York. In 1935, Stander moved to Hollywood. He had one of his first significant roles there as the cynical but kind-hearted manager Cornelius Cobb in Frank Capra's classic film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) alongside Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur .

There Stander, who had a strong and beefy body and a distinctive face dominated by an almost angular jaw, soon played mainly the lovable rascal or the tough accomplice. Even if he never got the big roles, he quickly became known and made around 50 films in the 1930s and 1940s. Through the Committee for Un-American Activities he was practically banned from his profession through the 1950s due to his political activities and during this time he hired himself as a stockbroker and - towards the end of this time - again as a wandering stage actor without permanent engagement.

In the early 1960s he slowly got film roles again. Between 1968 and 1978, Stander shot more and more in Europe, mainly spaghetti westerns and erotic films . His output was enormous. Between 1979 and 1984 he played the role of Max in the crime series Hart, alongside Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner , for which he received the Golden Globe in 1983 . The series was followed by eight TV specials between 1993 and 1996.

Lionel Stander died of lung cancer on November 30, 1994 and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale . His last film only hit the big screen after his death. He was married six times and had a total of six children with five of his wives.

Political activities

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Stander was politically involved in Hollywood from the start of his film career. He may have been impressed by John Howard Lawson's statement , who compared his acting skills to that of a great communist fighter. Lawson was then considered the culture commissioner of the Communist Party in Hollywood. In the film “No Time to Marry”, based on the script by Paul Jarrico , a well-known party member , Stander whistled a few bars of the International , believing it would be cut out. But Hollywood was still apolitical at the time and so the scene was preserved. From 1936 to 1939 he was an active member of the Popular Front .

Stander got involved in organizations, associations and trade unions to defend himself against the emerging reactions of the Americans against dissenters and against fascism in Europe, in which he saw an attack on democracy, as he later explained his behavior. Melvyn Douglas , a colleague and avowed liberal, was moved by Stander to join the party. Douglas, however, ruled out membership. Although he welcomed the fight Stander and his friends were waging, he did not want any party to convince him what he was doing. Like many liberals, he believed they could keep the communists in check. In 1939 the “ Hitler-Stalin Pact ” brought the American communists into dire straits. Many left the party, those who stayed were now declared Stalinists. Douglas and the Liberals also turned their backs on the Communists.

The Texan MP Martin Dies Jr. saw in the activities of the communists a danger for the country and initiated the committee against un-American activities. In 1940 filmmakers were heard in Hollywood themselves. The basis was, among other things, lists of names that an agent who had infiltrated the Communist Party in Los Angeles and spied on until 1937, had handed over to a court. This published the list and next to Stander, actors like James Cagney , Humphrey Bogart or Fredric March were branded as communists.

This promised rehabilitation to everyone who cooperated with him. Stander was the only one who was not acquitted of suspicion of membership in the Communist Party, after which his production company fired him. On the one hand, this was probably related to the fact that he was a member of the Popular Front. On the other hand, because Melvyn Douglas, who was deeply disappointed that communists had infiltrated the liberals, also had to testify and mentioned the unsuccessful recruitment attempt. The hearing was followed by the testimony before the actual committee, where, in addition to Stander, John Howard Lawson was also summoned and one of the ten from Hollywood who were sentenced to prison terms.

Stander himself was initially able to continue working and remained politically active. He was considered the leader of the progressive faction in the actors' association. Opposite him was the conservative faction, which was headed by Ronald Reagan , among others . In 1945, the "Conference of Student Union", supported by the actors' association and considered militant, whose leader John Sorrell had also been summoned in 1940, called on strikes against the film studios. Stander wanted to see the association on the side of the union, but lost in a ballot against the conservatives, who then withdrew their support from the union.

Support for the strike, which was suspected of being instigated by communists, and the testimony of Martin Berkeley , a screenwriter who incriminated Stander in the 1947 tribunal that he had met union leader Harry Bridges, suspected of being a communist, as a "comrade ", In 1951, led to Stander being put on a" black list ", which amounted to a professional ban.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Lionel Stander  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Stander, Lionel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stander, Lionel Jay (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1994
Place of death los Angeles