Paul Bildt

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Paul Bildt (around 1920)
Paul Bildt in the Deutsches Theater Berlin, September 1945

Paul Hermann Bildt (born May 19, 1885 in Berlin ; † March 13, 1957 there ) was a German actor and director . He was one of the outstanding and most versatile character actors in German theater, who celebrated his successes on Max Reinhardt's Berlin stages as well as in early films.

life and work

Paul Bildt was one of six children of the general store and later innkeeper Ferdinand Wilhelm Bildt and his wife Auguste Marie, née Fiebelkorn. He attended the Luisenstädtische Oberrealschule on Heinrichplatz up to primary school. Even at the age of fourteen, Bildt caused a stir at an amateur theater performance by the YMCA with a teacher parody. He broke off the police officer training he had started in Treptow and took acting lessons from Friedrich Moest at the Reichersche Hochschule für Dramatic Kunst .

On May 2, 1905, he made his debut at the summer tour theater of the Berlin theater director Linsemann in Hanover . From autumn 1905 he was engaged in the Schillertheater in Berlin, where he stayed for eight years. This was followed by an engagement at the Kleiner Theater, which was interrupted by the war. In 1910, Bildt made his screen debut. During the First World War he only had to wear the uniform for a short time due to a serious illness and was soon released.

Bildt became one of the busiest actors of the silent film era and was also a sought-after character actor in the 1920s. He also worked as a film director and, with the advent of talkies, also as a dialogue director for some films. Since Bildt belonged to the Deutsches Theater , he participated in the first production by the Berliner Ensemble . Since 1908 he was married to the Jewish actress Charlotte Friedländer († early 1945 with cancer) and father of a daughter, Eva Bildt .

After Hitler came to power in 1933, he ran the risk of being sidelined because of his Jewish wife. Under the protection of Intendant Gustaf Gründgens , he continued to play at the Prussian State Theater , and the UFA also entrusted him with numerous commissions, which, however, also led to his starring in various propaganda films. Shortly before the end of the war, he was added to the list of God- favored people. Bildt and his daughter Eva saw the end of the Second World War in Gustaf Gründgens' country house in Zeesen . After the occupation of the place by the Red Army on April 26, 1945, both took an overdose of veronal , which Eva Bildt died of, while Paul Bildt's life was saved after a coma for days.

After his recovery, Gründgens brought Bildt to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . This was followed by an engagement at the Münchner Kammerspiele in 1954 until his death . Post-war German films also found interesting roles for the actor, who had appeared in over 150 films up to his death. Among other things, he worked in some DEFA feature films, such as The Council of Gods and The Cold Heart in 1950 . In addition, Bildt also worked as a voice actor and lent his voice to Sacha Guitry and Walter Brennan ( lured into the trap ).

For his acting performance at the Berliner Ensemble in Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children , Bildt was one of the first actors to be honored with the German National Prize in 1949 . In his first marriage Paul Bildt was married to the actress Charlotte Friedländer; The daughter Eva Bildt (1916–1945), who later appeared as a reciter and was engaged to Helmut Gollwitzer , comes from this marriage . After the death of his first wife, Bildt was married to Katharina Pape for the second time. His grave is in the Dahlem cemetery .

Filmography (selection)

Silent films

Sound films

theatre

Radio plays

literature

  • ISP [= Ingrunwalk]: Paul Bildt - actor. In: Hans-Michael Bock (ed.): CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film LG. 31st edition text + kritik, Munich 1999.
  • Frank-Burkhard Habel , Volker Wachter : The great lexicon of the GDR stars. The actors from film and television. Extended new edition. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89602-391-8 .
  • Adolf Heinzlmeier , Berndt Schulz : The lexicon of German film stars. More than 500 biographies from then to now. Extended new edition. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-475-2 .
  • Birgit Pargner: Very close to being. The actor Paul Bildt. Henschel, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-580-0 .
  • Klaus Riemer: Paul Bildt (= Theater and Drama. Vol. 23, ISSN  0172-8024 ) Colloquium Verlag, Berlin-Dahlem 1963 (also: Berlin, Free University, dissertation, 1962).
  • Karl Voss (Ed.): Paul Bildt. An actor in his transformation. Josef Keller, Starnberg 1963.
  • Harry E. Weinschenk: Actors tell. Wilhelm Limpert-Verlag, Berlin 1938, 31 ff.

Web links

Commons : Paul Bildt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters. Former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 42.
  2. ↑ Helmut Gollwitzer, Eva Bildt: "I want to tell you quickly that I'm alive, dearest." Letters from the war 1940–1945 (= Beck'sche Reihe. Vol. 1877). With an afterword by Antje Vollmer, edited by Friedrich Künzel and Ruth Pabst. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57381-1 .
  3. ^ The German National Prize Winners 1949. In: Neues Deutschland , August 26, 1949, p. 3.
personal data
SURNAME Picture, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bildt, Paul Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1957
Place of death Berlin