Henry Blanke
Henry Blanke ( born December 30, 1901 in Steglitz b Berlin, Germany, † 28 May 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA; actually. Heinz Blanke ) was an American film producer, film director and writer of German origin.
Biography
Henry Blanke, the son of the German painter Wilhelm Blanke, began his career in 1920 as a production assistant in the Universum Film AG ( UFA) and got a few months later to the personal assistant of director Ernst Lubitsch on. As Lubitsch in 1922 accepted a film offer from Hollywood, Blanke accompanied him and remained in the following years his assistant. In 1924, both artists were in the Warner Bros. Studios under contract. However, the cooperation Lubitsch with the Studio line proved so difficult that the director in 1926 moved to Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer. Blanke remained at Warner Bros. and went there because of its economic operation and its good English and German language skills in the studio hierarchy quickly.
In the following years Blanke shuttled between Berlin and Hollywood and worked in various functions, such as in 1927 as an assistant to Fritz Lang's Metropolis at its production. From about 1928 to about 1930, he served as head of the German branch of Warner Bros. in Berlin and then returned to Hollywood back to oversee there ( shortly after the introduction of sound film ) the production of German-language versions.
Henry Blanke remained in the next three decades with Warner Bros. and worked in the district located in the Burbank Studios as associate producer ( Executive Producer ). With stars like Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and many more - Under his supervision, a variety of key Warner Bros. films of the so-called golden era was born.
A total of eight times one produced by Blanke film for the Oscar in the category was nominated for Best Picture. Yet it only once succeeded in 1938 to claim the gold statue for the film The Life of Emile Zola for themselves.
1961 Blanke withdrew into private life, about which nothing is known. He died a few months before his 80th birthday a stroke.