Stefan Schnabel
| Stefan Schnabel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Stefan Artur Schnabel February 2, 1912 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | March 11, 1999 (aged 87) Rogaro, Italy |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1933–1992 |
| Spouse(s) | Marion Kohler (married 1947–1999) |
| Relatives |
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Stefan Artur Schnabel (2 February 1912, Berlin, Germany – 11 March 1999, Rogaro, Italy) was a German-born American actor who worked in theatre, radio, films and television. After moving to the United States in 1937 he became one of the original members of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre repertory company. He portrayed Dr. Stephen Jackson on the CBS daytime TV series, The Guiding Light, for 17 years.
Stefan Artur Schnabel was born February 2, 1912, in Berlin, Germany. He was the younger son of the classical pianist Artur Schnabel and contralto Therese Behr Schnabel. His older brother was the pianist Karl Ulrich Schnabel.
"My father used to say that there was never a doorknob in our house that wasn't in somebody's hand," Schnabel said in a 1981 interview. "Both of my parents were musicians and teachers and so our house was always filled with pupils, and I would entertain them by dancing or doing something in pantomime since most of the pupils were foreigners." As a child Schnabel was assigned to teach the German language to his parents' American and Australian students. As a result, he had such proficiency in English that he was able to join The Old Vic repertory theatre company when his family emigrated to England after Hitler's rise to power. He studied with the Old Vic for four years. He made his debut in 1933 as an off-stage wind noise in The Tempest, and later played in Antony and Cleopatra (1934), Major Barbara (1935), As You Like It (1936), and the 1937 production of Hamlet starring Laurence Olivier.
In March 1937 Schnabel moved to New York and began working in radio. Among the first of the more than 5,000 radio shows on which he performed was The Shadow, starring Orson Welles. Schnabel joined Welles's Mercury Theatre repertory company and appeared as Metellus Cimber in its inaugural Broadway production, a landmark modern-dress production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1937–38) that evoked Nazi Germany. When Welles created the CBS radio series, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Schnabel performed on episodes including the legendary broadcast, "The War of the Worlds".
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