Urban Gad
Peter Urban Bruun Gad (born February 12, 1879 in Skælskør , Denmark , † December 26, 1947 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish screenwriter and director .
Life
Urban Gad was the second son of Rear Admiral Urban Gad (1841-1920) and the playwright Emma Gad (1852-1921). Like many other directors of the time, Urban Gad came to film through the theater . At the theater he met Asta Nielsen , with whom a fruitful collaboration developed. In 1910 they both decided to make films together. Gad wrote the screenplay and directed the film Afgrunden , in which Asta Nielsen starred and which became a box office hit.
The success made it possible for them to shoot films in Germany for Bioscop GmbH and for PAGU . The films made over the next few years were extremely profitable financially. In addition, we worked closely with the busy cameraman Guido Seeber . Gad's best-known film to this day is the comedy Engelein (1914), premiered in 1914, in which 32-year-old Asta Nielsen plays a 17-year-old who has to "play" a 12-year-old in order to keep her heirloom uncle to deceive. A final highlight is the film Front Staircase - Back Staircase (1915).
In 1912 Urban married Gad Asta Nielsen. The marriage was divorced again in 1918. Professionally, the collaboration had ended in 1915. There were no great successes for Gad afterwards. He still made films in Germany until 1922 and then returned to Denmark. There he could only direct one film: Lykkehjulet ( The Wheel of Fortune (1927), also: Pat and Patachon: The Vanished Testament ), a film with the Danish comedians Pat and Patachon .
Along with Stellan Rye, Urban Gad was one of the great directors in German cinema before the First World War , who had come to Berlin from Denmark in the early 1910s . He will be remembered as the director of the early films with Asta Nielsen.
Filmography (selection)
- 1910: Abysses (Afgrunden)
- 1911: hot blood
- 1911: Moths
- 1911: The Black Dream (Den sorte drøm)
- 1911: In the big moment
- 1911: Gypsy blood
- 1911: The strange bird
- 1911: The traitor
- 1912: The power of gold
- 1912: Poor Jenny
- 1912: Chased to death
- 1912: The Dance of Death
- 1912: The general's children
- 1912: When the mask falls
- 1912: Nina, the white slave (Det berygtede hus)
- 1912: The girl without a fatherland
- 1912: youth and madness
- 1913: comedians
- 1913: The sins of the fathers
- 1913: Death in Seville
- 1913: The Suffragette
- 1913: S1
- 1913: The film prima donna
- 1914: Engelein
- 1914: The child calls
- 1914: Zapata's gang
- 1914: the fire
- 1915: The daughter of the Landstrasse
- 1915: front stairs - back stairs
- 1916: Engeleins wedding
- 1916: Cinderella
- 1916: White roses
- 1916: The Eternal Night
- 1916: The ghost hour
- 1920: world fire
- 1921: The escape from the golden dungeon
- 1922: Hanneles Ascension
- 1927: The Wheel of Fortune (Lykkehjulet)
Web links
- Literature by and about Urban Gad in the catalog of the German National Library
- Urban Gad at filmportal.de
- Urban Gad in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gad, Urban |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gad, Peter Urban Bruun (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Danish screenwriter and director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 12, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Skælskør , Denmark |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 26, 1947 |
| Place of death | Copenhagen |