Emil Jannings
| Emil Jannings | |
|---|---|
Oscar winner Jannings back in Berlin, May 1929
|
|
| Born |
Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz 23 July 1884 Rorschach, Switzerland |
| Died | 2 January 1950 (aged 65) Strobl, Austria |
| Cause of death | Liver cancer |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1914–1945 |
| Spouse(s) |
Hanna Ralph (m. 1919–1921) Lucie Höflich Gussy Holl (m. 1923–1950) |
Emil Jannings (23 July 1884 – 2 January 1950) was a German actor, popular in 1920s Hollywood. He was the first Oscar recipient, honored with the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 1929 ceremony. To date, he is still the only German to have won the Best Actor Oscar.
Jannings is best known for his collaborations with F.W. Murnau and Josef von Sternberg, including 1930's The Blue Angel, with Marlene Dietrich. Der blaue Engel was meant as a vehicle for Jannings to score a place for himself in the new medium of sound film, but Dietrich stole the show. Jannings later starred in a number of Nazi propaganda films, which made him unemployable as an actor after the fall of the Third Reich.
In 1960, Jannings was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1630 Vine Street for his contribution to motion pictures, making him one of fewer than a hundred Oscar-winning male actors in Hollywood history to receive a star.
He was christened Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz in Rorschach, Switzerland, the son of Emil Janenz, an American businessman from St. Louis, and his wife Margarethe (née Schwabe), originally from Germany. Jannings held German citizenship; while he was still young the family moved to Leipzig in the German Empire and further to Görlitz after the early death of his father.
Jannings ran away from school and went to sea. When he returned to Görlitz, his mother finally allowed him to begin a traineeship at the town state theatre, where Jannings started his stage career. From 1901 onwards he worked with several theatre companies in Bremen, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Königsberg, and Glogau before joining the Deutsches Theater ensemble under director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Permanently employed since 1915, Jannings met with playwright Karl Vollmöller, fellow actor Ernst Lubitsch, and photographer Frieda Riess, who after World War I all were at the heart of the Weimar Culture in 1920s Berlin. Jannings made his breakthrough in 1918 with his role as Judge Adam in Kleist's Broken Jug at the Schauspielhaus.
...
Wikipedia