Rudolf Forster

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Rudolf Heribert Anton Forster (born October 30, 1884 in Gröbming ( Styria ), † October 25, 1968 in Bad Aussee / Styria) was an Austrian actor who was best known as a character actor .

Life

The son of a tax official received his acting training at the Vienna Conservatory . Since 1903 he was on the theater stage. He started at the traveling stage Vereinigte Theater Graz from 1903 to 1904 and then played at theaters in Linz , Berlin and Ohligs . From 1907 to 1909 he worked at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, 1909/10 at the Berlin Theater , then again in Vienna, including 1913 to 1915 at the Volksbühne .

From 1915 to 1918 he fought in the First World War . Since 1919 he appeared in silent films . From 1920 to 1932 he was a member of the Berlin State Theater under the artistic director Leopold Jessner . After 1933 Forster worked again increasingly in Austria.

In the silent film he came forward in the role of ambitious Junkers Detlev in one of the largest projects of Ufa , the Theodor-Storm film version to chronicle Grieshuus (1923-25), as quirky poet Scarron in the film adaptation of the play The pants of Carl Sternheim (1927) and as the leader of a right-wing secret society in Richard Oswald's Feme (1927). Forster's first sound film followed in 1931 with the Threepenny Opera directed by GW Pabst . He often played figures of respect or characters of the upper class. In High School (1934) he was a count and art rider, in ... nur ein Komödiant (1935) an actor who "doubles" a duke. In the Prussian film Yorck he was King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , a submarine commander in dawn .

In 1937 Forster went to the USA. After a brief engagement on Broadway (1939/40) and a film role, he returned to Germany in 1940. He played at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and in Vienna. In the anti-Semitic film Vienna 1910 by EW Emo , he played the mayor Karl Lueger .

After the war he initially devoted himself to the theater in Vienna and in both German states. In 1948/49 he toured Switzerland, and in 1963 he appeared in Faust II at the Salzburg Festival .

In the 1960s he also played in German crime films. So z. B. in the film The Crypt with the Riddle Castle by Edgar Wallace at the side of Ernst Fritz Fürbringer and Harald Leipnitz . He also starred in the film Der Henker von London based on Bryan Edgar Wallace with Hansjörg Felmy and Wolfgang Preiss and in the Harald Reinl film Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse . He also played u. a. also with Heinz Rühmann . Forster usually embodied the typical grand seigneur in his later films .

In 1938 he married the actress Eleonora von Mendelssohn in California . In his second marriage, he was married to Wilhelmine Karoline Klara Schachschneider from 1944, who also administered his estate. His grave is in the Bad Aussee cemetery.

Awards

Filmography

literature

  • Autobiography The game, my life. Propylaea Publishing House, Berlin 1967.
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than 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 , pp. 627-630
  • Wolfgang Beck: Forster, Rudolf . In: Manfred Brauneck, Wolfgang Beck (ed.): Theater Lexikon 2. Actors and directors, stage managers, dramaturges and stage designers . Rowohlt's encyclopedia published by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. Reinbek near Hamburg, August 2007, ISBN 978 3 499 55650 0 , p. 212 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Forster, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Forster, Rudolf Heribert Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Grobming , Styria
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1968
Place of death Bad Aussee , Styria