Paul Wegener

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the Nazi official of the same name, see
Paul Wegener (Nazi)
.

Paul Wegener
Born(1874-12-11)11 December 1874
Arnoldsdorf, Province of Prussia, German Empire
Died13 September 1948(1948-09-13) (aged 73)
Berlin, Allied-occupied Germany
OccupationActor
Spouse(s)Lyda Salmonova (divorced, remarried)
Greta Schröder (m.1924, divorced)
Children1
RelativesAlfred Wegener (cousin)
Kurt Wegener (cousin)

Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German

expressionist
cinema.

Acting career

At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and concentrate on acting, touring the provinces before joining

Max Reinhardt's acting troupe in 1906. In 1912, he turned to the new medium of motion pictures and appeared in the 1913 version of The Student of Prague. It was while making this film that he first heard the old Jewish legend of the Golem and proceeded to adapt the story to film, co-directing and co-writing the script with Henrik Galeen. His first version of the tale The Golem (1915, now lost) was a success and firmly established Wegener's reputation. In 1917, he made a parody of the story called Der Golem und die Tänzerin, but it was his reworking of the tale, The Golem: How He Came into the World
(1920) which stands as one of the classics of German cinema and helped to cement Wegener's place in cinematic history.

Another of his early films was Der Yoghi (1916), in which he played the role of a

Eastern mysticism
.

In 1926, he appeared in his only Hollywood film,

Somerset Maugham's story, followed by The Strange Case of Captain Ramper in 1927. In 1928, he starred alongside Brigitte Helm in his old collaborator Henrik Galeen's adaptation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' Alraune, playing the Frankenstein
-like Professor ten Brinken.

In 1932, Wegener made his sound debut in

expressionist movie genre.[citation needed
]

Life under the Nazi regime

Wegener acting as Nathan the Wise with Gerda Müller (standing) and Agathe Poschmann in Berlin in September 1945[1]

When in 1933 the

Mein Leben für Irland in 1941 and Kolberg, a 1944–45 propaganda film epic about the Napoleonic Wars.[2] As the war closed Wegener was one of the first to rebuild cultural life in Berlin. He appeared in the title role in a production of Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in September 1945.[1]
Despite ill health, he became president of an organization to improve standards for its inhabitants.

Personal life

He was married six times, thirdly and sixthly to the actress

Nosferatu (1922). The geographer Alfred Wegener and the meteorologist Kurt Wegener were his cousins, and the physicist
Prof. Peter P. Wegener was his son.

Late career and death

Wegener's last film was Der Grosse Mandarin (1948). In July 1948 he reprised his old role as Nathan the Wise at the Deutschen Theatre, but in the very first scene he collapsed and the curtain was brought down. Two months later, on 13 September 1948, he died in his sleep.

Selected filmography

Actor

Director

References

  1. ^ a b photo, from the Berlin production, Retrieved 27 July 2015
  2. ^ "Der Student von Prag (1913) – Overview – MSN Movies". Archived from the original on 23 September 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  3. ^ Henry Nicolella and John T. Soister. Many Selves: The Horror and Fantasy Films of Paul Wegener. BearManor Media. pp. 442–. GGKEY:615ZSK679BA.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul Wegener.
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