Carl Esmond


Willy Eichberger was an Austrian actor, credited in most of his English-language roles as Carl Esmond. He had a successful stage and screen career in Europe, before emigrating to the United States in the late 1930s as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

Early life

Esmond was born Carl Cäsar Willy Simon in Vienna. Although his age was given as 33 in the passenger list when he arrived in the US in January 1938, in his naturalization petition his birth year is stated as 1902.
Prior to his acting career, he worked as a bank clerk. He studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he was a pupil of Ernst Arndt. While in drama school, he changed his name to Willy Eichberger.

Career

Esmond made his professional debut at the Burgtheater aged 22. He played leading roles on stage in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg. He made his film debut in the operetta The Emperor's Waltz. He was active in the Viennese genre of light romantic comedies so popular in the Austria of the interwar period. One of his best known film roles in this period was in Max Ophüls' Liebelei. From 1935 to 1936, he was a matinee idol for UFA.
In 1933, he traveled to London to appear in the musical [Blossom Time |Blossom Time], for which used the stage name Carl Esmond, which thereafter became his name in English-language productions. He then starred as Prince [Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha|Prince Albert] in the West End stage play Victoria Regina, to great critical success.
In January 1938, Esmond came to Hollywood to play a German World War I pilot in [The Dawn Patrol |The Dawn Patrol]. While in America, he received threats to his family from Das Schwarze Korps, a newspaper run by the Nazi SS. Three months later, the Anschluss occurred, and Esmond refused to return to Austria for fear of reprisal. He remained in America, where he continued to appear on stage as well as in English-language films.
He appeared in over 50 films and numerous television programs. During World War II, he often portrayed a Nazi villain, though he also played more sympathetic roles in films like [Little Men |Little Men] and The Story of Dr. Wassell. He worked with many prominent directors in Hollywood, including Cecil B. DeMille, Howard Hawks, Jacques Tourneur, Edmund Goulding, Fritz Lang and Otto Preminger.
After the war, he became a fixture of early television plays. In 1953, he had a brief return to his native Europe, once again billed as Eichsberger, appearing in three films including Max Ophüls' Lola Montès.
His last on-screen work was in the made-for-television biopic My [Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn|My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn].

Death

Esmond died in Brentwood, Los Angeles in 2004 at the age of 102.

Filmography