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

Life and career

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 asilent film. He became one of Germany's best-known character actors. His speciality was in playing sinister and threatening roles, although he also appeared in the title role of Dreyfus (1930).

With the coming to power of the Nazis, the Jewish Kortner fled Germany in 1933, emigrating 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 of classics, such as Richard III (1964), in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the finale.

Death

Kortner died in Munich in 1970, aged 78.

Selected filmography

• The Night of Queen Isabeau (1920)
• Catherine the Great (1920)
• Hintertreppe (1921)
• The Conspiracy in Genoa (1921)
• The Brothers Karamazov (1921)
• Danton (1921)
• Luise Millerin (1922)
• Peter the Great (1922)
• The Earl of Essex (1922)
• Arme Sünderin (1923)
• Nora (1923)
• Warning Shadows (1923)
• Dr. Wislizenus (1924)
• The Hands of Orlac (1924)
• Moderne Ehen (1924)
• Should We Be Silent? (1926)
• Das Leben des Beethoven (1927)
• Mata Hari (1927)
• The Woman One Longs For (1929)
• Pandora's Box (1929)
• The Woman in the Advocate's Gown (1929)
• Somnambul (1929)
• Grischa the Cook (1929)
• Giftgas (1929)
• Atlantik (1929)
• The Other (1930)
• Dreyfus (1930)
• Menschen im Käfig (1930)
• The Great Longing (1930)
• The Virtuous Sinner (1931, director)
• Danton (1931)
• Chu Chin Chow (1934)
• Little Friend (1934)
• Evensong (1934)
• The Crouching Beast (1935)
• Midnight Menace (1937)
• The Razor's Edge (1946)
• Somewhere in the Night (1946)
• Berlin Express (1948)
• The Vicious Circle (1948)
• Epilogue (1950)

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.

Sources

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