Karel Štěpánek
Karel Stepanek ( born October 29, 1899 in Brno, † January 5, 1981 in Los Angeles ) was a Czech actor.
Life
After training as a singer and actor, he began his theater career in 1920 in Brno. In 1921 he went to Vienna, where he acted until 1923 at the Raimund Theater. He then joined four years on tour until he came to Berlin in 1927.
Here he played at the Komische Oper, the cabaret comedian and at the Metropolitan Theatre. At this time he also came to his first film roles. He was a most striking little Supporting Actor, which was also used during the Nazi regime on a regular basis with the German film.
It was not until 1939 he sat down to Italy and from there in 1940 from the UK. Here he worked for the BBC as a political commentator of propaganda broadcasts in Czech and German language. On stage he had here in Franz Werfel's Jakobowski and the colonel success. With this piece he entered in 1945 in New York, where he was in 1941 to see with Close Quarters and 1943 with The Moon is Down.
At the British film Stepanek received from 1942 again important roles in war and espionage dramas in which he was preferably used as deluded, arrogant Nazi. Also known as Admiral Günther Lütjens in Sink the Bismarck, and as a communist agent and scientists in other films he kept his negative image.