Anton Walbrook

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Anton Walbrook
Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, in the duel scene from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Born	Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrück 19 November 1896(1896-11-19) Vienna, Austria
Died	9 August 1967 (aged 70) (heart attack) Garatshausen, Bavaria, Germany
Occupation	Actor

Anton Walbrook, born German: (Adolf) Anton (Wilhelm) Wohlbrück (November 19, 1896, Vienna - 9 August 1967, Garatshausen) was an Austrian actor who settled in the United Kingdom.

Life

He was born Adolf Wohlbrück in Vienna, Austria, descended from ten generations of actors. His father broke with tradition and was a circus clown. Walbrook studied with the director Max Reinhardt and built up a career in Austrian theatre and cinema.

The grave of Anton Walbrook in Hampstead Cemetery, London

In 1936 he went to Hollywood to reshoot dialogue for the multinational The Soldier and the Lady (1937) and in the process changing his name from Adolf to Anton.

With the rise of oppression in Nazi Germany, Walbrook, who was half-Jewish and gay, settled in England instead of returning to Austria and continued working as a film actor. High points include the dashing, intense German officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), the tyrannical impresario in The Red Shoes (1948) and the ringmaster in La Ronde (1950). One of his most unusual films is The Queen of Spades (1949), an odd, Gothic thriller based on the Alexander Pushkin short story in which Walbrook co-starred with Edith Evans.

Red Shoes co-star Moira Shearer said Walbrook was a loner on set, often wearing dark glasses and eating alone.^[1] He retired from films at the end of the 1950s and in later years appeared on the European stage and television. He died of a heart attack in Garatshausen, Bavaria, Germany in 1967. His ashes were interred in the churchyard of St. John's Church, Hampstead, London, as he had wished in his testament.

Selected filmography

In Austria and Germany

• Walzerkrieg (1933), aka Waltz Time in Vienna, as Johann Strauss
• Viktor und Viktoria, aka Viktor and Viktoria (1933)
• Die vertauschte Braut (1934)
• Maskerade, aka Masquerade in Vienna (1934)
• Die englische Heirat (1934)
• Regine (1935)
• Der Student von Prag (1935), aka The Student of Prague
• Ich war Jack Mortimer (1935)
• Der Zigeunerbaron (1935)
• Der Kurier des Zaren (1936)
• Allotria (1936)

After leaving Germany

• The Soldier and the Lady (1937)
• Victoria the Great (1937) as Prince Albert
• Sixty Glorious Years (1938) as Prince Albert
• Gaslight (1940)
• Dangerous Moonlight (1941)
• 49th Parallel (1941)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• The Man from Morocco (1945)
• The Red Shoes (1948)
• The Queen of Spades (1949)
• La Ronde (1950)
• Le Plaisir (1952) narrator in German version
• L'affaire Maurizius (1954)
• Lola Montès (1955) as King Ludwig I of Bavaria
• Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955)
• Saint Joan (1957)
• I Accuse! (1958) as Major Esterhazy

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

• Anton Walbrook at the Internet Movie Database
• Anton Walbrook at the British Film Institute's Screenonline. Biography & filmography
• Anton Walbrook fan site
• Photographs of Anton Walbrook

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