Louis Wolheim

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Louis Wolheim in a magazine (1922)

Louis Wolheim (born March 28, 1880 in New York , NY , † February 18, 1931 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American actor and director.

Life

Born in New York, Louis Wolheim attended Cornell University, where he graduated with an engineering degree. He then worked as a math teacher for six years before starting his acting career. Although the character actor on the screen mostly tended to have rough, sometimes simple-minded figures, in private life he was considered intelligent and cultured and spoke French, German, Spanish and Yiddish. His trademark was the multiple broken nose, matching his rough face and his beefy body. Wolheim claims that she was injured at a football game while he was in collegeand that very day he got into a fight, which he won, but in which his nose finally broke. After he had given up his job as a teacher, which was considered exhausting, Wolheim initially worked as an insignificant extra in silent films. He was discovered on a film set in 1914 by the star actor Lionel Barrymore , who said to him: "With that face you could make a fortune in the theater."

Wolheim was first mentioned in the credits in the 1916 film Dorian's Divorce , albeit under the pseudonym L. Robert Wolheim . In the following years Wolheim was increasingly able to establish himself as a successful supporting actor in silent films, often as a grim film villain or criminal. At the invitation of Lionel and John Barrymore , Wolheim made his Broadway debut in The Jest in 1919 , followed by nine more Broadway appearances for Wolheim by the mid-1920s. In addition to John Barrymore, he also played in a total of three films. Wolheim's silent film appearances, which are still better known today, include David Wark Griffith's drama Two Orphans in the Storm (1921) with him as an executioner and in a sympathetic role as a boisterous officer in Lewis Milestone's war comedy Die Schlachtenbummler (1927). Directed by his friend Milestone, Wolheim played the experienced soldier Katczinsky in 1930 in what is now his best-known film In the West Nothing New .

Nothing new in the West was already a sound film, which displaced silent film in the late 1920s. In contrast to many other silent film actors, Wolheim's popularity did not collapse with the beginning of the sound film. On the contrary, his last film The Sin Ship (1931) even became his first directorial work, and at the time of his death he was in front of the camera as the leading actor in the comedy The Front Page . Wolheim suddenly died in February 1931 at the age of 50. While many sources cite stomach cancer, other sources cite the dramatic weight loss for its role in The Front Page as the cause of death. In the film The Front Page , Wolheim was replaced by Adolphe Menjou . From 1923 until his death, Wolheim was married to the stage actress Ethel Dane.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1914: The Warning
  • 1915: The Romance of Elaine
  • 1915: The New Adventures of J. Rufus Wallingford
  • 1916: Dorian's Divorce
  • 1916: The Brand of Cowardice
  • 1916: The Sunbeam
  • 1917: The End of the Tour
  • 1917: The Millionaire's Double
  • 1917: The Belle of the Season
  • 1917: The Eternal Mother
  • 1918: The Poor Rich Man
  • 1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • 1921: Two Orphans of the Storm
  • 1922: Sherlock Holmes
  • 1923: The Flight to Happiness (Unseeing Eyes)
  • 1924: America
  • 1924: Among pearl fishermen in Hawaii (The Univited Guest)
  • 1924: The Story Without A Name
  • 1924: Isn't Life Wonderful? (Isn't Life Wonderful)
  • 1927: The Two Arabian Knights
  • 1927: Captain Sorrell and his son (Sorrell and Son)
  • 1928: Weather lights (Tempest)
  • 1928: The Racket
  • 1928: The journey into the fire (The Awakening)
  • 1929: Escape from Devil's Island (Condemned)
  • 1930: on the Western Front (All Quiet on the Western Front)
  • 1931: Also directed The Sin Ship

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article on Wolheim's death from the Photoplay magazine in 1931
  2. ^ Louis Wolheim on the Internet Broadway Database


personal data
SURNAME Wolheim, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , NY
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1931
Place of death Los Angeles , California