Lothar Mendes
Lothar Mendes ( born May 19, 1894 in Berlin, † February 25, 1974 in London ) was a German film director and screenwriter.
Life
He attended the Gymnasium in Berlin Sophie ( with his later colleague Ernst Lubitsch ) and debuted at the age of 17 years as an actor. Mendes was a year later on stages in Bremen, Hannover and Vienna. At the theaters by Carl Meinhard and Rudolf Bernauer, he was active in Berlin.
After the First World War Mendes made contacts to the film. He started as a screenwriter and was for The Ring Movie 1921 The Secret of Santa Maria stage his first film with actor and producer Michael beans.
After further films in which well-known actors such as Lya de Putti, Paul Wegener, Lil Dagover and Conrad Veidt participated, he took in 1926 an offer from Paramount and went to Hollywood, where he directed, among others, in The Four Feathers.
In 1934 he gave his debut in the UK with a film version of Lion Feuchtwanger's Jud Suss. Because of the philo -Semitic orientation of the film came to the performance only in Austria and not in Nazi Germany. Alexander Korda committed Mendes then for fantasy production The man who wanted to change the world. His last British directing Moonlight Sonata to the Polish pianist and politician Ignacy Jan Paderewski attracted attention.
Mendes then returned to the U.S. and turned it for many films. He was briefly married to actress Eva May and from 1926 to 1928 to actress Dorothy Mackaill.