Rudolf Rittner

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Rudolf Rittner as Florian Geyer, painting by Lovis Corinth (1906)
Rudolf Rittner 1901

Rudolf Rittner (born June 30, 1869 in Weißbach , Austria-Hungary ; † February 4, 1943 Weißbach , Freiwaldau district , German Empire ) was a German stage and film actor.

Life

Rudolf Rittner was the son of Mayor Franz Rittner. At the age of twelve he left his place of birth in the Sudetenland to study music at the conservatory in Vienna, in 1887 he switched to drama school there, without the knowledge of his parents, who were skeptical of the new calling. After completing his training, he worked at the Residenztheater in Berlin, performed in Cologne and Hamburg and came to Berlin again in 1894, this time at the Deutsches Theater , where he worked for ten years until he switched to the Lessing Theater .

In 1893 he played the role of Hans at the premiere of Max Halbe's play Jugend . Later he was best known as a performer in works by Gerhart Hauptmann , such as Fuhrmann Henschel , Moritz Jäger in Die Weber and Florian Geyer . He was portrayed in this role by Lovis Corinth in 1906. It was also Florian Geyer who was to help Rittner to achieve great fame, as he had made the previously little-noticed play a success through his talent for acting. In 1907, at the age of 38, at the height of his career, to everyone's surprise he left the theater and retired to his birthplace to devote himself to farming on his farm. He was only briefly a member of the board of directors of the Society of the German Art Theater .

In 1922 Rittner returned to the public. In the silent film The Count of Charolais , he played Captain Romont. Two years later he was seen as Rüdiger von Bechelaren in Fritz Lang's popular hit Die Nibelungen , in 1927 as Hans Sachs in Der Meister von Nürnberg , for which he himself had written the screenplay. After his last film, the German-Swedish co-production Fathers and Sons , he finally retired into private life in 1930 at the age of 61.

Rudolf Rittner died on February 4, 1943 on his farm in Weißbach and is buried in the cemetery there. His death reminded one more of his acting successes. At that time he was largely only known to the general public from Corinth's portrait of Florian Geyer. Rittner left two plays for posterity, Recovery (1901) and the minstrel drama Narrenglanz (1906).

Filmography

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