Walter Reisch
Walter Reisch (* May 23, 1903 in Vienna, † March 28, 1983 in Los Angeles ) was an American screenwriter and film director of Austrian origin.
Life and work
Go to film Walter Reisch was already during his school years, he received a job as theater Statist opportunity to put together groups of extras for film productions. A part thereof medical studies he broke off when he was offered a long- term commitment with a film company. He took over here different, mostly organizational, task, and worked as a production assistant, among others, Alexander Korda. Besides, he wrote for the press articles, feature articles and poems. At the same time he began writing screenplays, which were often used without his name was mentioned in the header.
In 1930 Walter Reisch worked at the Berlin Super -Film GmbH, where he worked six times in two years with the director Geza von Bolvary. Also starting in 1930, he worked under Erich Pommer for the Ufa After the seizure of power in 1933 had to return because of his Jewish ancestry to Vienna, where he wrote the screenplay for Willi Forst movie Masquerade (1934 ) Reisch. With Paula Wessely, who had also played the lead role in masquerade, after he staged his own script to film episode (1935 ). So after masquerade he succeeded another masterpiece of the Viennese film and also a successful implementation of the atmosphere of Vienna at the time of inflation in 1922. The film was also the only Austrian production with the participation of Jews who, after 1933, accepted for performance in National Socialist Germany.
As his MGM contract offered, Walter Reisch was in September 1937 to Hollywood, where he wrote screenplays for films with the major female stars of MGM in the following years: Greta Garbo, Olivia de Havilland, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh, Merle Oberon, Lana Turner and Ingrid Bergman. In 1942, he acquired American citizenship. In 1946 he moved to Universal, 1947 Paramount, 1949 20th Century Fox, where he wrote screenplays for films with Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Stanwyck among others. Since 1954, Reisch wrote repeated for German film companies. 1954 Walter Reisch got an Oscar for the screenplay for the sinking of the Titanic ( 1953).
In the late 1970s Reisch wrote on the basis of masquerade an operetta of the same name, along with his cousin Georg Kreisler, who composed the music. ( Reisch supported Kreisler and his parents after they had fled in 1938 without belongings from the Nazis in the United States and had in 1946 in the film " Song of Scheherazade " in Hollywood worked with him ). Actually Robert Stolz was meant to write the music, but died in 1975 at the age of 95, when he had just begun. The premiere took place at the 1983 Vienna Festival in the theater in the Josefstadt under Kreisler's musical direction instead and ran for two seasons before a packed house. Since then, the work was never played. Reisch not live to see the performance, as he died very ill and on March 28, 1983 in Los Angeles.
Walter Reisch was married since 1935 to his second wife with the dancer Poldi Dur aka Elisabeth ( Lisl ) Handl, which occurs as a supporting actress in some of Reisch's Austrian films.
Filmography
Script, unless otherwise indicated:
Awards
- International Film Festival of Venice 1934: " Best Screenplay " for masquerade
- 1941: Oscar nomination for "Best original story " to Comrade X
- 1954: Academy Award for " Best Screenplay " at Titanic