William Dieterle

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Wilhelm Dieterle around 1928 on a photograph by Alexander Binder

Wilhelm Dieterle (from 1930 Anglicised to William Dieterle ; * July 15, 1893 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein ; † December 9, 1972 in Ottobrunn ) was a German film director and actor who took on US citizenship in 1937. By 1928 he was seen as an actor in over 60 German films. From the 1930s, he was able to record greater success as a director in Hollywood . In particular, his biopics such as Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola have received multiple awards. Up to and including 1968 Dieterle directed 87 films.

biography

Born as the seventh child of the factory worker Jakob Dieterle and his wife Bertha Dieterle in Ludwigshafen-Hemshof , Dieterle grew up in Ludwigshafen-Mundenheim . After training as a carpenter and glazier, he took acting lessons at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and appeared on stage and in films from 1913. He had his breakthrough as an actor in the 1920s at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin, for example as Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Demetrius in a Midsummer Night's Dream . He increasingly switched to film work and made his first film as a director in 1923: The Man on the Path , in which the still unknown Marlene Dietrich played her first film role. In addition, Dieterle continued to work as a film and theater actor, he worked on German silent film classics such as Paul Leni's The Wax Figure Cabinet (1924) and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Faust - a German folk tale (1926).

His directorial work in Germany was so successful that he went to Hollywood in 1930 with a Warner Bros. contract . After he had shot a few version films for the German audience there, he was entrusted with his first English-language film The Last Flight in 1931 . The drama about four World War II pilots who get drunk all night in Paris is considered one of the most important cinematic testimonies of the Lost Generation . Alongside Michael Curtiz , Dieterle quickly became one of the studio's in-house directors who knew how to deliver solid work in every genre. In particular, some films with Kay Francis were very successful, including the comedies Man Wanted and A Thief with Class from 1932. In the same year he also directed Ruth Chatterton The Crash , in which Chatterton leaves her husband as a manipulative and greedy woman after this with eponymous stock market crash has lost all savings. Together with Max Reinhardt, Dieterle adapted the ambitious film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 , but in the opinion of many critics the result did not meet the high expectations.

Wilhelm Dieterle (left) during a break in filming the film Das Wachsfigurenkabinett , 1924

From 1936 Dieterle was best known for his film biographies. They showed a wide audience the life and work of personalities such as Louis Pasteur ( Louis Pasteur ), Émile Zola ( The life of Emile Zola ), Florence Nightingale ( The White Angel ), Paul Ehrlich ( Paul Ehrlich - A life for research ), Benito Juárez ( Juarez ), Paul Julius Reuter ( A Man with Imagination ) and Andrew Johnson ( Tennessee Johnson ). For The Life of Emile Zola , he was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Director in 1938 , and Emile Zola received nine other nominations and won in the categories of Best Film and Best Supporting Actor ( Joseph Schildkraut ). In 1939 Dieterle shot the Victor Hugo film The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton in the title role, which many critics still consider the best film adaptation of the novel.

Dieterle had been a US citizen since 1937 . He was an important person in the German exile community in Hollywood and stood up for many artist colleagues who fled Germany from the National Socialists . He found work for emigrated filmmakers in the USA and thus the opportunity to survive. Countless actors were employed by him in mostly smaller roles, others found employment elsewhere on the basis of his recommendation. Together with Ewald André Dupont , he published the anti-fascist magazine Hollywood Now , which also told some popular tales, including speculation about a love affair between Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl .

Wilhelm Dieterle with Ricarda Huch (1946), photographer: Abraham Pisarek

After 1945 he concentrated on melodramas such as I'll be Seeing You , in which Ginger Rogers, as a convicted criminal, experiences romantic hours with Joseph Cotten on leave. One of his greatest commercial successes was love letters , in which Joseph Cotten in the lead role sends love letters to Jennifer Jones under a false name . Only after many complications do they both become happy. Jennifer Jones was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. Dieterle's fantasy love film Jenny , also starring Cotten and Jones , a ghost story lavishly produced by David O. Selznick , was a failure with critics and audiences in 1948. It wasn't until decades later that Jenny found a more positive reception. Dieterle had his last resounding financial success in 1950 with love rush on Capri , who presented Joseph Cotten as a married diplomat and Joan Fontaine as a successful concert pianist, who both tried a new life with new identities on Capri after their supposed death in a plane crash, but ended up trying to find each other acknowledge their responsibility to their relatives.

Dieterle's success diminished noticeably in the 1950s. In the McCarthy era , his involvement against the National Socialists and his friendships with left-wing figures such as Bertolt Brecht brought him under suspicion of being a communist. He was never blacklisted, but found it more difficult to get regular work, which is why he speculated that he was on an unofficial "gray list". During this time he primarily shot costume and adventure films, often in an exotic setting, such as Salome with Rita Hayworth and Elephant Path with Elizabeth Taylor , which, however, rarely met with critical acclaim. At the end of the 1950s he returned to Europe and made some less successful films in Italy. He staged a number of television games for German television. In 1960 he shot the film Die Fasnachtsbeichte after Carl Zuckmayer with the young Götz George in Mainz . From 1961 to 1964 he was director of the open-air theater in Bad Hersfeld. Later he was temporarily director and owner of the touring theater Der Grüne Wagen .

Dieterle was married to the actress and screenwriter Charlotte Hagenbruch since 1921 . After her death in 1968 he married the costume designer Elisabeth Daum. He died in December 1972 at the age of 79 in Ottobrunn, Bavaria. His grave is in the community cemetery of Hohenbrunn near Munich. The William Dieterle Film Prize has been awarded from his native Ludwigshafen am Rhein since 1993 .

His written estate is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

Works

As an actor (selection)

As a director (selection)

Awards

literature

  • Willi Breunig (Ed.): The jump on the stage. The youth and theater memories of the actor and director William Dieterle (= publications of the City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Volume 24). City archive Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1998, ISBN 3-924667-28-4 .
  • Willi Breunig (ed.): The fight for the story. The Hollywood and life memories of the actor and director William Dieterle (= Publications of the City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Volume 29). City Archives Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2001, ISBN 3-924667-33-0 .
  • Larissa Schütze: William Dieterle and the German-speaking emigration in Hollywood. Antifascist film work at Warner Bros. Pictures, 1930–1940. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-515-10974-1 .
  • Hervé Dumont : William Dieterle. Un humanist au pays du cinéma. CNRS Éditions - Cinémathèque Française - Musée du Cinéma, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-271-06001-X .
  • Marta Mierendorff: William Dieterle. The Plutarch of Hollywood. Henschel, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-177-6 .
  • Horst O. Hermanni: William Dieterle. From farmer's son to Hollywood director. With a filmography by Hervé Dumont . The World of Books, Worms 1992, ISBN 3-88325-498-3 .
  • Marta Mierendorff: William Dieterle: forgotten key figure in emigration. His relationships with exiled authors. In: Donald G. Daviau, Ludwig M. Fischer (Hrsg.): The exile experience. Negotiations of the 4th symposium on German and Austrian literature in exile. Camden House, Columbia SC 1982, ISBN 0-938100-17-3 , pp. 81-100.
  • Stefan Otto: Hemshof and Hollywood in DIE RHEINPFALZ, Ludwigshafen, July 13, 2018, current presentation on the occasion of the 125th birthday.

Web links

Commons : William Dieterle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth register of StA Ludwigshafen am Rhein, No. 843/1893
  2. ^ Death register StA Hohenbrunn, No. 24/1972
  3. ↑ https://www.morgenweb.de/mannheimer-morgen_artikel,-ludwigshafen-vom-arbeitersohn-zum-hollywood-regisseur-_arid,1664463.html
  4. ↑ http://www.steffi-line.de/archiv_text/nost_film20b40/176_dieterle_wilhelm.htm
  5. ↑ William Dieterle: Fighting Nazis with films , ORF.at
  6. ↑ William Dieterle: Fighting Nazis with films , ORF.at
  7. ↑ Wakeman, John. World Film Directors, Volume 1. The HW Wilson Company. 1987. pp. 245-251.
  8. ↑ Tour Theater Thomas Stroux. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Marriage register StA Meersburg, No. 34/1968
  10. ↑ https://www.filmportal.de/person/wilhelm-dieterle_8884f8395f414d2e8445398e97865503
  11. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of William Dieterle
  12. ↑ William Dieterle Archive Inventory overview on the website of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
personal data
SURNAME Dieterle, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dieterle, Wilhelm (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American film director and actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludwigshafen am Rhein
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1972
Place of death Ottobrunn