Viktor de Kowa
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Viktor de Kowa | |
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Born | Victor Paul Karl Kowarzik 8 March 1904 |
Died | 8 April 1973 | (aged 69)
Resting place | Waldfriedhof Heerstrasse, Berlin, Germany |
Occupation(s) | Film and theatre actor, singer, director, writer |
Years active | 1922–1973 |
Spouse(s) | Ursula Grabley (1926–41) Michiko Tanaka (1941–73; his death) |
Viktor de Kowa (also spelled Victor de Kowa, born Victor Paul Karl Kowalczyk; 8 March 1904 – 8 April 1973) was a German stage and film actor, chanson singer, director, narrator, and comic poet.
Life
He was born the son of a farmer and engineer in Hohkirch near Görlitz (present-day Przesieczany in Poland), from where his family moved to Seifersdorf near Dippoldiswalde in Saxony in 1908 and to Chemnitz in 1913. De Kowa joined a cadet corps before he began occupational training as a graphic designer. Having attended drama classes with Erich Ponto, he gave his acting debut at the Staatstheater Dresden in 1922. After appearances in Lübeck, Frankfurt and Hamburg, de Kowa entered the stages of the Volksbühne and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, as well as of the Prussian State Theatre under Gustaf Gründgens.
He had a first small film appearance in Nils Olaf Chrisander's The Heart Thief in 1927 and subsequently became one of the leading comic actors of the UFA film industry. During the Third Reich he joined the Nazi Party, directing the propaganda movie Kopf hoch, Johannes! in 1941. The film idealized the education of the German youth in National Political Institutes of Education, which earned de Kowa an entry on the Gottbegnadeten list to evade his Wehrmacht conscription, though Minister Goebbels was disillusioned with his directing.
Despite his involvement into Nazi cinema, de Kowa's film and theatre career quickly proceeded after the war. In 1945 he became director of the Berlin Tribüne theatre and an ensemble member of the Vienna Burgtheater from 1956 to 1962. As chairman of the Arts Union, he was also a board director of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB).
In 1964 he starred in the TV series Slim Callaghan Intervenes as Peter Cheyney's private detective Slim Callaghan.
Personal life
First married to actress Ursula Grabley (1908–1977) in 1926, de Kowa was remarried in 1941 to Japanese singer and actress Michiko Tanaka (1909–1988). Both are buried in Friedhof Heerstraße, in an Ehrengrab donated by the City of Berlin.
Selected filmography
- Katharina Knie (1929) - Lorenz Knie
- Pension Schöller (1930) - Bernhardy
- 1914 (1931) - Großfürst Michael
- Die Faschingsfee (1931) - Victor Ronai
- The True Jacob (1931) - James
- The Other Side (1931) - Leutnant Hibbert
- Tannenberg (1932)
- The Pride of Company Three (1932)
- The Invisible Front (1932)
- Little Man, What Now? (1933)
- Typhoon (1933)
- The Castle in the South (1933)
- The Marathon Runner (1933)
- Tell Me Who You Are (1933)
- A Song Goes Round the World (1933)
- Pappi (1934)
- What Am I Without You (1934)
- Decoy (1934)
- The Young Baron Neuhaus (1934)
- The Grand Duke's Finances (1934)
- My Life for Maria Isabella (1935)
- Game on Board (1936)
- The Divine Jetta (1937)
- Don't Promise Me Anything (1937)
- Wibbel the Tailor (1939)
- We Make Music (1942)
- The Thing About Styx (1942)
- Peter Voss, Thief of Millions (1946)
- Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1947)
- Melody of Fate (1950)
- The Beautiful Galatea (1950)
- Scandal at the Embassy (1950)
- The Blue Star of the South (1951)
- The Prince of Pappenheim (1952)
- A Love Story (1954)
- Des Teufels General (1955) - SS-Gruppenführer Schmidt-Lausitz
- Der Himmel ist nie ausverkauft (1955) - Professor Behrens
- Vor Gott und den Menschen (1955) - Martin
- Music in the Blood (1955) - Kurt Widmann
- The Girl from Flanders (1956) - Monsieur le Curé Simon / Dr.Simon
- Nichts als Ärger mit der Liebe (1956)
- Scampolo (1958) - Minister
- Embezzled Heaven (1958) - Theo
- Bombs on Monte Carlo (1960) - Minister
- Final Accord (1960) - Alexander von Berkin
- The Forger of London (1961) - Dr. Donald Wells
- It Can't Always Be Caviar (1961) - Loos
- The House in Montevideo (1963) - Anwalt
- Encounter in Salzburg (1964) - Bernhard von Wangen
- Winnetou and Old Firehand (1966) - Robert Ravenhurst
References
External links
- Viktor de Kowa at IMDb
- Viktor de Kowa at Find a Grave
- Viktor de Kowa at Virtual History
- 1904 births
- 1973 deaths
- People from the Province of Silesia
- German male film actors
- German male stage actors
- German film directors
- People from Zgorzelec County
- 20th-century German male singers
- German theatre directors
- Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 20th-century German male actors
- 20th-century German poets
- German male poets
- 20th-century German male writers