Fritz Kortner

Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn; 12 May 1892 – 22 July 1970) was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director.

"Fritz Kohn" redirects here. For John Kerry's grandfather, see John_Kerry § Ancestry.

Fritz Kortner
Kortner in 1959
Born
Fritz Nathan Kohn

(1892-05-12)12 May 1892
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died22 July 1970(1970-07-22) (aged 78)
Munich, West Germany
Burial placeMunich Waldfriedhof
Occupation(s)Actor; theatre director
Years active1915–1968
Spouse
​
(m. 1924)​
Children2

Life and career
Kortner at the age of 19 years, circa 1911

Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn into a Jewish family. 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. After his breakthrough performance in Ernst Toller's Transfiguration in 1919, he became one of Germany's best-known character actors and the nation's foremost performer of Expressionist works. He also appeared in over ninety films beginning in 1916.

His specialty was in playing sinister and threatening roles, although he also appeared in the title role of Dreyfus (1930). He originally gained attention for his explosive energy on stage and his powerful voice; but as the 1920s progressed, his work began to incorporate greater realism, as he opted for a more controlled delivery and greater use of gestures.

With the coming to power of the Nazis, Kortner fled Germany in 1933 with is wife, actress Johanna Hofer, returning first to his native Vienna and, from there, on to Great Britain, and finally, in 1937, to the United States,[1] where he found work as a character actor and theater director.

He returned to Germany in 1949, where he became noted for his innovative staging and direction of classics by William Shakespeare and Molière, such as a Richard III (1964) in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the finale.

Death

Kortner died at Munich in 1970, aged 78, of leukemia.[2]

Selected filmography

Autobiographical works
  • 1971: Letzten Endes. Fragmente. (posthumous autobiography, edited by Johanna Kortner)
  • 1996: Aller Tage Abend. Autobiographie. Droemer-Knaur, München, 1996, ISBN 3-426-02336-9.
    • Aller Tage Abend. Autobiographie. Alexander Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89581-098-3.
  • 2005: Aller Tage Abend. Auszüge, gelesen von Fritz Kortner. Alexander Verlag, Berlin ISBN 3-89581-137-8.

References

Notes

  1. "The Jewish Actor Who Would Not Be Intimidated", forward.com; accessed 10 February 2018.
  2. "FRITZ KORTNER,78, ACTOR‐DIRECTOR". The New York Times. 24 July 1970.

Bibliography

  • Critchfield, Richard D. From Shakespeare to Frisch: The Provocative Fritz Kortner. Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers, 2008. ISBN 3-93502-599-8; ISBN 3-935025-99-8


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