Viktor Franz

Viktor Franz (born 17th April 1882 in Marienbad , Austria-Hungary ;. Died March 1943 in New York City ) was an Austrian actor of stage and film and theater director .

Live and act

Franz received his artistic training at the turn of the century in a theater school in Vienna. Subsequently, his engagements took him to theaters in the kuk province (including St. Pölten and Aussig) before returning to the Austrian capital, to the Neue Wiener Bühne, for three seasons in 1908/09. In 1913/14 Franz performed at Vienna's Volksbühne and in 1914/15 at the Residenzbühne. In 1916 he made his debut in front of the camera with a supporting role in the German-Austrian large-scale production Bogdan Stimoff . In the last two years of the First World War, Viktor Franz belonged to the ensemble of the Theater in der Josefstadt. In the first post-war season in 1918/19, Franz also worked as a director at the Volksbühne. From 1919 to 1924 Viktor Franz took part in an abundance of silent films, mostly with small roles, after which (from 1924 to 1926) Franz appeared again as an actor, this time on Vienna's Renaissance stage. In the summer months, Franz found employment at the spa theater in Bad Ischl. Subsequently (1927/28) Franz returned in front of the camera. As a theater actor, Franz went on tour with colleague Gisela Wer District with the play Dremal Hochzeit .

In 1931/32 Franz appeared in numerous early German sound films, but his roles were now only in batch format. In 1932/33 the New Lustspielhaus in Vienna became his artistic home, in 1933/34 Die Komödie, also in the Austrian capital. He made a guest appearance with Gisela Wer District in Prague in 1935, after which Franz appeared in a film production for the last time in 1936, when the employment situation for Jewish artists in Austria was becoming increasingly precarious, the love comedy Fräulein Lilli with Franziska Gaal in the title role. Viktor Franz then remained largely unemployed. In 1940 he managed to escape to the United States, where Viktor Franz worked in New York in emigrant productions such as the Granichstaedten operetta When the music plays (1941), the exile cabaret of comedians (1942) and in Karl Kraus ' Die last Tage der Humanity , where, also in 1942, he played some scenes. At the end of 1942 he was seen in the operetta Wonderbar . He also appeared on radio broadcasts. The artist gave his farewell performance as “Victor Franz” in his first and only English-language play: In the four-week performance of Harriet (about Uncle Toms Hütte author Harriet Beecher Stowe ) staged by Elia Kazan from March 3, 1943 old Mr. Wycherly. Viktor Franz died at the age of 60 while the play was still playing.

Filmography

• 1916: Bogdan Stimoff
• 1917: Under the spell of duty
• 1919: the idiot
• 1920: Miss Cowboy
• 1921: The key to power
• 1922: The birth of the Antichrist
• 1922: A monk's confession
• 1922: Sinful love
• 1923: Hoffmann's stories
• 1923: The Hell of Barballo
• 1923: The son of the galley convict
• 1924: Max, the king of the circus
• 1924: The Forbidden Land
• 1924: Ssanin
• 1927: the right to live
• 1927: The rough shirt
• 1927: The girl without a home
• 1927: Tingel Tangel
• 1928: Girls at risk
• 1928: The woman of yesterday and tomorrow
• 1928: The schoolmaster from Lichtenthal
• 1928: Lotte, the department store girl
• 1931: The disgust
• 1931: Everyone asks about Erika
• 1931: The captain of Köpenick
• 1932: Everything is getting better again
• 1932: The Countess of Monte Christo
• 1932: Hasenklein can't help it
• 1932: rag cavaliers
• 1936: Miss Lilli

literature

• Trapp, Frithjof; Mittenzwei, Werner; Rischbieter, Henning; Schneider, Hansjörg: Handbook of the German-speaking Exile Theater 1933–1945 / Biographical Lexicon of Theater Artists. Volume 2, p. 268 f. Munich 1999

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Harriet" in the Internet Broadway Database

Web links

• Viktor Franz in the Internet Movie Database (English) - completely wrong date of birth
• Viktor Franz at filmportal.de