Fritz Kortner


Fritz Kortner was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director.

Life and career

Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn into a Jewish family. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. After his breakthrough performance in Ernst Toller's Transfiguration in 1919, he became one of Germany's best-known character actors and the nation's foremost performer of Expressionist works. He also appeared in over ninety films beginning in 1916.
His specialty was in playing sinister and threatening roles, although he also appeared in the title role of Dreyfus. He originally gained attention for his explosive energy on stage and his powerful voice; but as the 1920s progressed, his work began to incorporate greater realism, as he opted for a more controlled delivery and greater use of gestures.
With the coming to power of the Nazis, Kortner fled Germany in 1933 with his wife, actress Johanna Hofer, returning first to his native Vienna and, from there, on to Great Britain, and finally, in 1937, to the United States, where he found work as a character actor and theater director.
He returned to West Germany in 1949, where he became noted for his innovative staging and direction of classics by William Shakespeare and Molière, such as a Richard III in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the finale.

Death

Kortner died at Munich in 1970, aged 78, of leukemia.

Selected filmography

Manya, die Türkin Im Banne der Vergangenheit Das Geheimnis von D.14 Police Nr. 1111 – Mac WaldyDas zweite Leben Martyr of His Heart – Ludwig van BeethovenThe Other I – ProfessorFrauenehre – Mathias EngerDer Sonnwendhof Else of Erlenhof The Eye of the Buddha – indischer DienerWithout Witnesses Satan – Pharao AmenhotepGerechtigkeit Va banque – S. M. WulffThe Brothers Karamazov – Der alte KaramasoffCatherine the Great – PotemkinThe Skull of Pharaoh's Daughter Weltbrand – Iwan BeckerThe Night of Queen Isabeau – ConnetableDie Verschleierte Christian Wahnschaffe The Maharaja's Favourite Wife – Bruder von Maharadscha BhimaThe Strongest Instinct The Railway King The House on the Moon – Jan van Haag – WachsfigurenhändlerThe House of Torment – ArztHashish, the Paradise of Hell – SultanThe Conspiracy in Genoa – GianettinoCountry Roads and the Big City – Mendel HammersteinDanton Aus dem Schwarzbuch eines Polizeikommissars – Der KrüppelThe Hunt for the Truth Backstairs – Der PostboteThe Railway King On the Red Cliff – Henning RinkensLuise Millerin – MillerThe Earl of Essex – Lord NottinghamPeter the Great – Patriarch AdrianA Dying Nation The Call of Destiny What Belongs to Darkness – GangsterAt the Edge of the Great City Nora – Krogstadt, LawyerSchatten – Eine nächtliche Halluzination – The countA Woman, an Animal, a Diamond – UrmenschLe revenant au baiser mortel Poor Sinner – CanaryThe Hands of Orlac – NeraModern Marriages – DienerKiedy kobieta zdradza meza – LokajDoctor Wislizenus – Dr. WislizenusShould We Be Silent? – Der annoncierender ArztThe Life of Beethoven – Ludwig van BeethovenMata Hari – Graf BobrykinStudents' Love – KarstenAlpine Tragedy – Mairas VaterCaught in Berlin's Underworld – LordThe Mistress of the Governor – Zarewitsch Alexander / Gouverneurs SohnMary Stuart – Marschall BothwellDraga Maschin Dame Care – Der alte MeyhöferOdette – FrontenacSpy of Madame Pompadour – Zar Paul von RußlandThe Last Night – MontaloupPandora's Box – Dr. Ludwig SchönSomnambul – Fabrikant BingenThe Woman One Longs For – Dr. KaroffThe Woman in the Advocate's Gown – Konsul BackhaugThe Ship of Lost Souls – Kapitän Vela – Captain Fernando VelaThe Night of Terror – Prince WagarinAtlantik – Heinrich Thomas, authorGiftgas – Konzernpräsident StraatenThe Other – Prosecutor HallersDreyfus – Alfred DreyfusMenschen im Käfig – Captain KellThe Great Longing – Himself, Fritz KortnerThe Virtuous Sinner Danton – DantonThe Murderer Dimitri Karamazov – Dimitri KaramasoffYou Don't Forget Such a Girl Chu Chin Chow – Abu HasanLittle Friend – GiantEvensong – Arthur KoberAbdul the Damned – Sultan Abdul Hamid II / Kelar – his doubleThe Crouching Beast – Ahmed BeyPagliacci Midnight Menace – Minister Peters of GrovniaThe Purple V – Thomas ForsterThe Strange Death of Adolf Hitler – BauerThe Hitler Gang – Gregor StrasserThe Wife of Monte Cristo – MaillardSomewhere in the Night – Anzelmo aka Dr. OracleThe Razor's Edge – KostiThe Brasher Doubloon – Rudolph VannierBerlin Express – FranzenThe Vicious Circle – Joseph SchwartzThe Last Illusion – Professor MauthnerThe Orplid Mystery – Mr. P. L. HoopmanBluebeard – HaushofsmeisterSecrets of the City Sarajevo

Autobiographical works

  • 1971: Letzten Endes. Fragmente.
  • 1996: Aller Tage Abend. Autobiographie. Droemer-Knaur, München, 1996,.
  • * Aller Tage Abend. Autobiographie. Alexander Verlag, Berlin 2005,.
  • 2005: Aller Tage Abend. Auszüge, gelesen von Fritz Kortner. Alexander Verlag, Berlin.