Alexander Kolowrat
| Alexander Kolowrat | |
|---|---|
Sascha Kolowrat (left) at work, around 1916
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| Born |
Alexander Joseph Graf Kolowrat-Krakowsky January 29, 1886 Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | 4 December 1927 (aged 41) Vienna, Austria |
| Occupation | Film producer |
| Years active | 1909–1927 |
Count Alexander "Sascha" Joseph von Kolowrat-Krakowsky (29 January 1886 – December 4, 1927), was an American-born Austrian film producer of Bohemian-Czech descent. A pioneer of Austrian cinema, he founded the first major film studio Sascha-Film in Vienna.
He was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the son of Count Leopold Filip Kolowrat-Krakowsky (1852–1910) and his wife Nadine Freiin von Huppmann-Valbella (1858–1942), the daughter of a successful cigarette manufacturer from Saint Petersburg. He had three siblings: Bertha, Friedrich and Heinrich.
The reason "Sascha" Kolowrat-Krakowsky was born in the US is described in a letter of March 30, 1984 from his nephew Count Colloredo-Mansfeld to the Austrian film scholar Walter Fritz:
After Count Leopold Kolowrat had been granted a reprieve by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, the family returned to Austria-Hungary. Sascha Kolowrat studied at the Catholic University of Leuven (present-day Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in Belgium where he became a member of the German Catholic fraternity Katholische Academische Verbindung Lovania Leuven. He served in the army and was able to speak many European languages. After he had met Charles Pathé in Paris in 1909, he got into cinematography, besides his interests in motorcycle and car racing, aviation and ballooning. In 1909, he privately filmed a car racing at the Semmering Pass.
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