Rudolph Schildkraut

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Rudolph Schildkraut
(before 1905)
Emil Orlik : Role portrait Rudolph Schildkraut as Autolycus in Shakespeare's “A Winter's Tale”, Berlin 1906

Rudolph Schildkraut (born April 27, 1862 in Constantinople , † July 15, 1930 in Los Angeles ) was an Austrian film and theater actor . He spent the last ten years of his life in the USA.

Life

In the Ottoman Empire, born to a Jewish hotelier, he grew up in Braila , Romania on. In Vienna he received acting lessons from Friedrich Mitterwurzer . He made his debut in Ödenburg at the beginning of the 1880s , and received his first permanent engagement in Krems an der Donau in 1885 .

In 1893 he came to Vienna to take on an engagement at the Raimund Theater, which had just opened . In 1898 he moved to the Carltheater . Among other things, he played the worm in Cabal and Love . In 1900 it came to the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and in 1905 to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin . There he was one of the main actors in the ensemble of Max Reinhardt . Fritz Kortner praised his Shylock , whom he portrayed in Reinhardt's productions of The Merchant of Venice in 1905 and 1913 , as a “monument to the art of acting”. Other important roles were the title character in King Lear (1908), Mephisto in Faust I (1909), Muley Hassan in The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa (1909), Gravedigger in Hamlet (1909) and Peter Bast in Knut Hamsuns Vom Teufel brings ( 1914). Schildkraut made his first guest appearance in the USA in 1910/11.

Rudolph Schildkraut was chairman of the association for the "promotion of Jewish art" in Berlin. The opening speech on Sunday, November 17, 1907, in the “Exhibition of Jewish Artists” in Berlin, was emphasized with clarity and warmth in its execution and received extensive applause from the brilliant speaker.

As a film actor, he became known in the German Empire at the beginning of the silent film era. He played leading roles in several film dramas . His first film was Der Shylock von Krakau , his last German-language film was a biography of the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl , in which Schildtkraut embodied “The wrestling Israel”.

In 1920 he finally emigrated to America and made his debut in New York City in the same year in the play Silent Forces . From 1922 he also played in English. In 1925 he founded his own Jewish theater in New York.

In the last five years of his life he played in several Hollywood productions. His most famous film, which would also make him famous in America, was King of Kings by Cecil B. DeMille from 1927, in which he played the high priest Caiaphas .

He was married to Erna Weinstein, with whom he had a son, Joseph (1896–1964), who also became known as an actor.

Rudolph Schildkraut died of a heart attack at the age of 67 . His son also died of a heart attack at the same age.

Filmography

literature

Web links

Commons : Rudolph Schildkraut  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Schildkraut, Rudolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film actor and stage actor of Austrian origin
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1930
Place of death Los Angeles , California