Max Schreck

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Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck[1] (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936),[2][3][4] was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampire Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu (1922).

Early life

Template:Refimprove section Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later, his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district of Teltow. He was baptized at St. Matthew's Church in Berlin.[5]

Schreck's father did not approve of his son's ever-growing enthusiasm for theatre. His mother provided the boy with money, which he secretly used for acting lessons, although only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he travelled briefly across the country with poet and dramatist Demetrius Schrutz.

Schreck had engagements in Mulhouse, Meseritz, Speyer, Rudolstadt, Erfurt and Weissenfels, and his first extended stay at The Gera Theatre. Greater engagements followed, especially in Frankfurt am Main. From there, he went to Berlin for Max Reinhardt and the Munich Kammerspiele for Otto Falckenberg.

Schreck received his training at the Berliner Staatstheater (State Theatre of Berlin), completing it in 1902.[3] He made his stage début in Meseritz and Speyer, and then toured Germany for two years, appearing at theatres in Zittau, Erfurt, Bremen,[3] Lucerne,[3] Gera,[3] and Frankfurt am Main.[3] Schreck then joined Max Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin.[6] Many members of Reinhardt's troupe went on to make significant contributions to the German film industry.[6]

Schreck did not join the Nazi Party and “did not engage in party politics” (direct quote from the most reliable modern biographical sources). In January 1933 (the very month Hitler became Chancellor), he performed in Die Pfeffermühle (“The Peppermill”), an openly anti-fascist cabaret run by Erika Mann (Thomas Mann’s daughter) and other left-leaning artists in Munich. The show was shut down by the new Nazi authorities after only two months.

His pre-1933 circle included Bertolt Brecht, Max Reinhardt, and other progressive or Jewish theater figures — exactly the people the Nazis drove into exile or worse. After 1933 his film roles shrank dramatically (likely because of his politics and/or “difficult” personality), but he kept working on stage in Munich until the night before he died.

Career

File:Film Nosferatu (van F, SFA008003709.jpg
Schreck as Count Orlok

For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele,[6] including a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's début, Script error: No such module "Lang". (Drums in the Night) in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb.[7] During this time, he also worked on his first film The Mayor of Zalamea, adapted from a six-act play, for Decla Bioscop.[6]

In 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for its first and only production, Nosferatu (1922), an unlicenced adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The company declared itself bankrupt after the film was released to avoid paying copyright infringement costs to the author's widow, Florence Stoker.[6] Schreck portrayed Count Orlok, a character analogous to Count Dracula.[6]

While still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht with cabaret and stage actors Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt, Erwin Faber, and Blandine Ebinger, entitled Script error: No such module "Lang". (Mysteries of a Barbershop, 1923), directed by Erich Engel.[8] Schreck appeared as a blind man in the film The Street (also 1923).[2][6]

Schreck's second collaboration with Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau was the comedy Script error: No such module "Lang". (The Grand Duke's Finances, 1924).[6] Even Murnau did not hesitate to declare his contempt for the picture.[6] In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films, his career surviving the advent of sound until 1936, when he died from heart failure.[9]

Personal life

Schreck was married to actress Fanny Normann,[6] who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck.

One of Schreck's contemporaries recalled that he was a loner with an unusual sense of humour and skill in playing grotesque characters. He also reported that he lived in "a remote and incorporeal world" and that he often spent time walking through forests.[9]

There were rumours at the time of Nosferatu and for many years afterwards that Schreck did not actually exist and was a pseudonym for the well-known actor Alfred Abel.[10]

Schreck did not engage in party politics, but starred in the anti-fascist cabaret Die Pfeffermühle by Erika Mann. It began playing in January 1933 and was shut down by the newly formed Nazi government, two months later.[11]

Death

On 19 February 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the play Script error: No such module "Lang"., standing in for Will Dohm. That evening, he felt unwell, and the doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning of a heart attack.[12] His obituary especially praised his lead role performance in Molière's play The Miser.[12] He was buried on 14 March 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf in Brandenburg.[2]

Cultural references

The person and performance of Max Schreck in Nosferatu was fictionalised by actor Willem Dafoe in E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire.[9] In a secret history, Shadow posits that Schreck was a real vampire.[13] Dafoe was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Schreck.[14]

Scriptwriter Daniel Waters created the character Max Shreck (portrayed by Christopher Walken) for the Tim Burton film Batman Returns and compared him to the character Max Schreck played in Nosferatu.[15] Variety claimed the name was an in-joke.[16]

Selected filmography

See also

Notes

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  1. ↑ Eickhoff, Stefan. 2007
  2. ↑ a b c Brill, Olaf. 2004
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Walk, Ines. 2006.
  4. ↑ All reliable sources agree as to Schreck's actual date of birth and date of death.(Brill, Olaf. 2004, Walk, Ines. 2006) However, at least until 9 March 2009 the Internet Movie Database had incorrect and self-contradictory details. (IMDB bio: "Date of Birth: 6 September 1879," ... "born on June 11, 1879" ... "Date of Death 26 November 1936," ... "death from a heart attack on February 19, 1936")
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Enigmatic Max: The career of Max SchreckTemplate:Category handler[<span title="Script error: No such module "string".">usurped]Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".. Retrieved 26 December 2008
  7. ↑ Brecht, Willett and Manheim (1970, ix)
  8. ↑ McDowell, W. Stuart. "A Brecht-Valentin Production: Mysteries of a Barbershop", Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter, 1977), pp. 2–14; and "Acting Brecht: The Munich Years", by W. Stuart McDowell, in The Brecht Sourcebook, Carol Martin, Henry Bial, editors (Routledge, 2000) p. 71–83.
  9. ↑ a b c Graham 2008 Page 2. Retrieved 26 December 2008
  10. ↑ William K. Everson, The Bad Guys: A Pictorial History of the Movie Villain, The Citadel Press: New York, 1964
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ a b Brill 2004, Peter Trumm: obituary in Script error: No such module "Lang". vol. 89, no. 52, on 21 February 1936. Script error: No such module "Lang". (ie. 08:30 in the morning of 20 February 1936)
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".

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References

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Further reading

  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (summary of Eickhoff's biography/tribute of Schreck)

External links

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