Joseph Schildkraut

Joseph Schildkraut
Joseph Schildkraut in 1924
Born	(1896-03-22)22 March 1896 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	21 January 1964(1964-01-21) (aged 67) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1915–1964
Spouse(s)	Elise Bartlett (1923–1930; divorced) Marie McKay (1932–1962; her death) Leonora Rogers (1963–1964; his death)
Children	None
Parent(s)	Rudolph Schildkraut Erna Weinstein

Joseph Schildkraut (22 March 1896 – 21 January 1964) was an Austrian-American stage and film actor.

Schildkraut was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Erna (née Weinstein) and stage (and later motion picture) actor Rudolph Schildkraut. His family was Jewish. The younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions. Among the plays that he starred in was a notable production of Peer Gynt.

In 1921, Schildkraut played the title role in the first American stage production of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, the play that would eventually become the basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. He then began working in silent movies, although he did return to the stage occasionally. He had early success in film as the Chevalier de Vaudrey in D. W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm with Lillian Gish. Later, he was featured in Cecil B. DeMille's epic 1927 film The King of Kings, as Judas Iscariot. Schildraut's father Rudolf also appeared in the film. Joseph Schildkraut also played a Viennese-accented, non-singing Gaylord Ravenal in the 1929 part-talkie film version of Edna Ferber's Show Boat. The character as written in the 1929 film was much closer to Ferber's original than to the depiction of him in the classic Kern and Hammerstein musical play based on the novel as well as the 1936 and 1951 film versions of the musical, but the 1929 film was not a critical or box-office success.