Career Highlights: Pandora's Box, Die Stadt ist voller Geheimnisse, The Brasher Doubloon
First Major Screen Credit: Hintertreppe (1921)
Biography
Fritz Nathan Kohn was an actor in German theater and films by the mid teens, and he directed himself in Gregor Marold and Else Von Erlenhof after World War One. He stuck to acting in the '20s, appearing in such notable films as Robert Wiene's Orlacs Hande (aka The Hands of Orlac) and G.W. Pabst's Die Buchse Der Pandora (aka Pandora's Box). In the early '30s he directed and co-scripted Der Brave Sunder (aka The Upright Sinner) and So Ein Mudel Vergisst Man Nicht but then had to flee the Nazis. Kortner came to the States in 1938, and after writing and directing on Broadway, became an actor and writer in Hollywood, most notably with The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler. Returning to Germany after the war, he resumed acting and directing in theater and films, helming Die Stadt Ist Voller Geheimnisse and Sarajevo, as well as the television film Die Sendung Der Lysistrata. ~ All Movie Guide
Kortner was born in Vienna as "Fritz Nathan Kohn." He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. Also in that year he made his first appearance in a silent film. He became one of Germany's best known character actors. His speciality was playing sinister and threatening roles, though he also appeared in the title role of 1930's Dreyfus.
The coming of the Nazis to power forced Kortner to flee Germany in 1933; he emigrated to the United States, where he found work as a character actor and theatre director for a time before returning to Germany in 1949. Upon his return, he became noted for his innovative staging and direction, particularly of classics such as his Richard III (1964) in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the end.