Richard Eichberg

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Eichberg House in Thyrow , 2015

Richard Albert Eichberg (born October 27, 1888 in Berlin , † May 8, 1952 in Munich ) was a German director , actor and film producer .

Live and act

Eichberg made his debut as a theater actor in 1906 and stood in front of the camera for the first time in so-called sound images the following year . Also in 1907 an engagement at the theater in Schaffhausen led him . In the years 1909 to 1912 Eichberg went on a major theater tour through South America and toured all major cities in Argentina , Brazil , Chile and Uruguay as well as all the German-speaking islands in these countries. Back in Germany, Eichberg returned to Berlin in front of the camera.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I , Eichberg switched to film directing. Initially, he mostly directed dramas and sensational crime films, which were often set in exotic locations, mostly in his own production. Series actresses such as Ellen Richter and Leontine Kühnberg gained fame under his direction, and from 1919 Eichberg's wife Lee Parry was the star of his films for some time. In 1925, meanwhile divorced from Parry, Eichberg brought out the acting novice Lilian Harvey and her colleague Dina Gralla in the film Passion . Harvey had already worked under Eichberg's direction for the first time as Double Lee Parrys the previous year (1924) in Eichberg's Die Motorbraut . In 1925 he bought a house from the chess player Emanuel Lasker in Thyrow, south of Berlin, and had it converted. It is known since 2002 as Eichberg-house under monument protection .

In 1926 Richard Eichberg brought Harvey and Willy Fritsch together for the first time in the comedy Die chaste Susanne and established the most popular film lovers in Germany until the outbreak of World War II . In the end of the silent film era, Eichberg specialized in lightweight and frivolous comedies. From 1928 to 1931 he shot mostly in British studios. From 1933 to 1938 Eichberg initially worked in Austria, where he negotiated a Prinz Eugen film in May 1936, shortly before that in France and finally also in India. Since his departure from Berlin in January 1937, his greatest sound film successes have been made there, the ambitious remakes of an old silent film by Joe May , The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb . The two-parter was a sensational popular success in 1938. A few months later, even Hans Albers in Wasser for Canitoga paid tribute to the box office hit in his own personal way with the line “I am the Maharajah of Whiskey-Pure”.

In view of the censorship by the Reichsfilmkammer under the control of Joseph Goebbels , Eichberg traveled to the USA for the first time in April 1938. Here he tried to market his India two-parter - with little success. Back in Germany, state pressure became more and more massive. It is reported that in the spring of 1939 Eichberg was given the alternative of either selling his Swiss villa property and bringing the foreign currency into the Reich, or no longer being allowed to stage it in Germany. Then Eichberg moved again to the USA in October 1939, where he was used on various stages in New York , for example in the summer of 1942 in the Broadway production of The New Moon . In contrast, Eichberg, naturalized in May 1944 , found no employment in American film .

In January 1949 Richard Eichberg returned to Germany and settled in Munich. In mid-1949 he tried the u. a. Society and adventure material filmed on location in Morocco Die Reise nach Marrakech to follow up on his 1938 Indian film success. The film was a huge flop and ended Eichberg's directorial career. A subsequent film adaptation of a Don Juan story never came about. Eichberg's last completed film project was directed in 1950 by Erik Ode (under Eichberg's artistic direction and production). At the time of his death, Richard Eichberg was preparing a new film material (The Last Waltz) .

His grave is in the forest cemetery in Munich , old part.

Filmography (selection)

presentation

Direction and / or production

literature

  • Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than is given ..." Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. Acabus-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 149 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Russians are coming! But where? in heise.de
personal data
SURNAME Eichberg, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eichberg, Richard Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director, actor and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1952
Place of death Munich