Fritz Wendhausen

Fritz Wendhausen ( born August 7, 1890 in Wendhausen; † January 5, 1962 in Königstein im Taunus; native Fritz Schulze ) was a German actor, theater director, film director and screenwriter.

Life

He studied art history, history and philosophy and graduated with a doctorate. Then he took acting lessons and began his stage career in 1916 as an actor and auxiliary dramaturge in Leipzig.

In 1917, he was senior director in Mainz, 1919 in Mannheim. 1920 brought him Max Reinhardt as a director on the German theater and the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin. There, he directed, among other things Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw (1920), The Passion of Wilhelm Schmidt Bonn (1921 ), Anna Christie (1923 ), The Café Carlo Goldoni's house (1923 ), and Thou shalt not kill ( 1924).

In 1921 he made ​​his debut as a film director. Mostly he himself wrote the script for his films. An artistic experiment in 1923 was the film The Ballad stone rider, which he wrote for an idea of screenwriter Thea von Harbou and directed in stylized, influenced by expressionism decor. A successful film Wend Stockhausen was 1927, the peasant drama The son of Hagar after the popular novel by Paul Keller. He he ventured into political and social current materials as in the first right of the child with Hertha Thiele ( 1932).

After the " seizure of power" of the Nazis, he arranged to initially with the regime and joined the 1933 NSBO cell German-born film directors at. His most complex and ambitious work was 1934 Peer Gynt with lead actor Hans Albers. Wendhausen was then temporarily married to actress Hanna Ralph.

In 1938 he emigrated to Britain. Since 1940 he worked for the German service of the BBC. He said in numerous shipments, which were addressed to German listeners in Nazi Germany. In the radio play Kurt, he was the voice of the old-fashioned and generous teacher, Kurt, who contradicts his fanatical colleague Willi. In several British films he played as an actor under the name Wend Housen FR, FR Wendhausen and Frederick Wendhausen threatening Nazi officers.

After the war he returned to Berlin and back occasionally staged at the Hebbel -Theater and the Theater am Kurfürstendamm several plays, including The Glass Menagerie. In 1959 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Filmography (as director)

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