Max Schreck

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Not to be confused with Max Shreck.
Max Schreck
Born Maximilian Schreck
6 September 1879
Berlin, Germany
Died 20 February 1936 (aged 56)[1]
Munich, Germany
Spouse(s) Fanny Normann (1910 - 1936)

Maximilian "Max" Schreck (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936)[1][2][3] was a German actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role in the film Nosferatu (1922).

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[edit] Early life

Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Schreck received his training at the Berliner Staatstheater (the State Theatre of Berlin) which he completed in 1902.[2] He made his stage debut in Meseritz and Speyer, and then toured Germany for two years appearing at theatres in Zittau, Erfurt, Bremen,[2] Lucerne,[2] Gera,[2] and Frankfurt am Main.[2] Schreck then joined Max Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin.[4] Many of Reinhardt's troupe made a significant contribution to the cinema.[4]

Schreck served in World War I from 1915 to 1918.

[edit] Career

Max Schreck in Nosferatu (1922).

For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele,[4] including a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's debut, Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) (in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb).[5] During this time he also worked on his first film Der Richter von Zalamea, adapted from a six act play, for Decla Bioscop.[4]

Max Schreck as Juana's father in Doña Juana (1927).

In 1922, he was hired by Prana Film for their first and only production, Nosferatu. The company declared itself bankrupt after the film was released to avoid paying copyright infringement costs to Florence Stoker, Dracula author Bram Stoker's widow.[4] Schreck portrayed Count Orlok, a character analogous to Count Dracula.[4]

In 1923, while still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht with cabaret and stage actors Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt, Erwin Faber, and Blandine Ebinger, entitled Mysterien eines Friseursalons (Mysteries of a Barbershop), directed by Erich Engel.[6] Also in 1923, Schreck appeared as a blind man in the film Die Straße (The Street).[1][4]

Schreck's second collaboration with Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau was the 1924 comedy Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs (The Grand Duke's Finances).[4] Even Murnau did not hesitate to declare his contempt for the picture.[4]

In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films surviving the advent of sound until his death in 1936 of heart failure.[7] On February 19, 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the play Don Carlos, standing in for Will Dohm. That evening he felt unwell and the doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning[8] of a heart attack. His obituary especially praised his role as The Miser in Molière's comedy play.[8] He was buried on March 14, 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof in Berlin.[1]

[edit] Personal life

He was married to actress Fanny Normann,[4] who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck. Schreck had at least one brother named Augustin Schreck,[citation needed] who also fathered Max Schreck's niece, actress Gisela Uhlen (born Gisela Friedlinde Schreck).[9]

Max Schreck in Die Straße (1923).

Curiously, the word schreck is also the German word for fright, or terror.[1] It comes from the Middle High German word schrecken: "to frighten, or terrify". Because of this, many authors who were unaware of Schreck's on-stage credits (and ignorant of the rather sparse details of his personal life) speculated that there was really no such person,[1] and that Schreck was, in fact, some well-known actor who had chosen to adopt a pseudonym for his role in Nosferatu. One of the prime "suspects" was Alfred Abel; however, a careful examination of the photographs of these two actors is sufficient to dispel such notions.

Schreck's contemporaries recalled he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor and skill in playing grotesque characters. One reported he lived in "a remote and strange world" and that he spent time walking through dark forests.[7]

[edit] Cultural references

The person and performance of Max Schreck in Nosferatu has been fictionalized by actor Willem Dafoe in E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire.[7] In a sort of secret history, Shadow posits a fictional account of what if Schreck actually was a vampire.[10]

Scriptwriter Daniel Waters created the character Max Shreck for the film Batman Returns and compared him to the character Max Schreck played in Nosferatu.[11] The magazine Variety claimed the name was an in-joke.[12]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Brill, Olaf. 2004
  2. ^ a b c d e f Walk, Ines. 2006.
  3. ^ All reliable sources agree as to Schreck's actual date of birth and date of death.(Brill, Olaf. 2004, Walk, Ines. 2006) However, at least until 2009-03-09 the Internet Movie Database had incorrect and self-contradictory details. (IMDB bio: "Date of Birth: 6 September 1879," ... "born on June 11, 1879" ... "Date of Death 26 November 1936," ... "death from a heart attack on February 19, 1936")
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j missinglinkclassichorror.co.uk. Enigmatic Max: The career of Max Schreck. Retrieved 2008-12-26
  5. ^ Brecht, Willett and Manheim (1970, ix)
  6. ^ McDowell, W. Stuart. "A Brecht-Valentin Production: Mysteries of a Barbershop", Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter, 1977), pp. 2-14; and "Acting Brecht: The Munich Years," by W. Stuart McDowell, in The Brecht Sourcebook, Carol Martin, Henry Bial, editors (Routledge, 2000) p. 71 - 83.
  7. ^ a b c Graham 2008 Page 2. Retrieved 2008-12-26
  8. ^ a b Brill 2004, Peter Trumm: obituary in Münchner Neueste Nachrichten vol. 89, no. 52, on February 21, 1936. "am Donnerstag früh um einhalb neun Uhr im Schwabinger Krankenhaus gestorben" (ie. 08:30 in the morning of February 20, 1936)
  9. ^ filmportal.de. (German) Retrieved 2008-07-14
  10. ^ Nugent, Phil (2008-05-13). "Digging Up Max Shreck, the Screen's Original Dracula". http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/05/13/digging-up-max-shreck-the-screen-s-original-dracula.aspx. Retrieved on 2009-05-21. "The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, starring John Malkovich as Murnau, was a darkly comic fantasy in which it was revealed that "Shreck" was an actual vampire (played by Willem Dafoe) that the director had brought in to lend his authenticity to the role. It was rooted in a film-scholar in-joke that went back decades." 
  11. ^ "Batman YTB". http://www.batmanytb.com/movies/batmanreturns/bios/villians.php. Retrieved on 2009-05-21. "The script gave the writer (Daniel Waters) license to create his own villain in the form of Christopher Walken's nefarious Max Shreck, named after Max Schreck, the star of F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922)." 
  12. ^ MCCARTHY, TODD (1992-05-15). "Batman Returns Review". Variety. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117901465.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0. Retrieved on 2009-05-21. "Max Shreck, a character named, as an in-joke, after the German actor who starred as the screen's first Dracula in F.W. Murnau's 1922 "Nosferatu."" 

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

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