Frederick Valk
Frederick Valk | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 23 July 1956 London, England | (aged 61)
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1920s–1956 |
Frederick Valk (10 June 1895 – 23 July 1956) was a German-born Jewish stage and screen actor of Czech Jewish descent who fled to the United Kingdom in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, and subsequently became a naturalised British citizen.
Despite making his later career in the English-speaking world, Valk never attempted to shed his heavy Mitteleuropa accent in either his stage or film work, and it became a trademark, particularly in film where he was often the first choice for a role which called for a German or Central European accent.
Stage career
Valk made his first appearance on the London stage in 1939, going on to play in numerous productions of classic drama including leading roles in Shakespeare, with his performances as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and in the title role of Othello, attracting critical admiration.[1][2] In 1946 he won the Ellen Terry Award for best actor for his performance in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.[3]
Valk also toured overseas, in the 1950s performing at the fledgling Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. When challenged by local journalists that as a Jew he should feel uneasy about playing Shylock, he replied that the assertion made no more sense than saying a Scotsman should baulk at playing Macbeth, that he in fact found a strong pro-Semitic message in the play and that he deplored "that people are beset with prejudices of all sorts and can't bring themselves to wipe their eyes and read and think".[4]
Critics responded with fulsome praise for his performance: "Mr Valk works in the grandest continental manner...every gesture breathes intelligence and every vocal note is true".[5]
The Canadian Jewish Congress however, which had protested vociferously over the inclusion of the play in the Stratford programme, loathed the production, stating: "We were assured...in advance of the staging of the play that it would not emerge an anti-Semitic production, that Frederick Valk would rise to great heights as Shylock. These predictions did not materialize: the play remains the vilest anti-Semitic production on record."[6]
Film career
Valk never received top-billing in films, but was happy to accept supporting roles in good screen productions. High-profile films in which he featured include The Young Mr Pitt and Thunder Rock (both 1942), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Mrs. Fitzherbert (1947), The Magic Box (1951),[7] and The Colditz Story (1955).[8]
Death
Aged 61, Valk died suddenly in London on 23 July 1956 during the run of the play Romanoff and Juliet in which he was appearing. His wife Diana subsequently wrote a memoir entitled Shylock for a Summer in which she revealed that Valk had been planning to write an autobiography at the time of his death, and had written a note to himself stating: "I don't want to talk at length of my histrionic adventures – the idea of this is to draw a curve of a life, lived in shadow and sun but lived with gratefulness."[9]
Selected filmography
- 1927: Out of the Mist
- 1939: Traitor Spy - German Ambassador (uncredited)
- 1940: Night Train to Munich - Gestapo Officer
- 1940: Neutral Port - Captain Traumer
- 1941: Gasbags - Sturmfuehrer
- 1941: This Man Is Dangerous - Dr. Moger
- 1941: Dangerous Moonlight - Polish Bomber Commander
- 1942: The Young Mr Pitt - Minor Role (uncredited)
- 1942: Thunder Rock - Dr. Stefan Kurtz
- 1944: Hotel Reserve - Emil Schimler, alias Paul Heimberger
- 1945: Dead of Night - Dr. Van Straaten
- 1945: Latin Quarter - Dr. Ivan Krasner
- 1946: A Matter of Life and Death - RAF Chaplain (uncredited)
- 1947: Mrs. Fitzherbert - King George III
- 1948: Saraband for Dead Lovers - The Elector Ernest Augustus
- 1949: Dear Mr. Prohack - Dr. Viega
- 1951: Outcast of the Islands - Hudig
- 1951: The Magic Box[7] - Maurice Guttenburg
- 1952: Top Secret - Rakov
- 1953: I Chose Love
- 1953: Never Let Me Go - Kuragin
- 1953: The Flanagan Boy - Giuseppe Vecchi
- 1953: Albert R.N. - Camp Kommandant
- 1955: The Colditz Story - Kommandant
- 1955: Magic Fire - Minister von Moll
- 1955: I Am a Camera - Doctor
- 1955: Secret Venture - Otto Weber
- 1956: Wicked as They Come - Mr. Reisner (uncredited)
- 1956: Zarak - Haji Khan (Zarak's father) (final film role)
References
- ^ "Frederick Valk - Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
- ^ Carlebach, Julius; Hirschfeld, Gerhard; Newman, Aubrey; Paucker, Arnold; Pulzer, Peter (21 September 1991). "Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom". Mohr Siebeck – via Google Books.
- ^ "Frederick Valk Dies - Best Actor of 1946" The Glasgow Herald, 24 July 1956; retrieved 20 August 2010.
- ^ "Jewish Actor Defends Role Of Shylock", Ottawa Citizen, 21 May 1955; retrieved 20 August 2010.
- ^ "Fresh Winds Over Stratford", Ottawa Citizen, 7 September 1955; retrieved 20 August 2010.
- ^ "Shylock Does Us Little Good", The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, 7 August 1955; retrieved 20 August 2010.
- ^ a b The Magic Box (film profile), IMDb.com; accessed 10 February 2018.
- ^ "Frederick Valk".
- ^ "An Actor and His Family, The Montreal Gazette, 26 July 1958; retrieved 20 August 2010.
External links
- 1895 births
- 1956 deaths
- German male film actors
- German male stage actors
- German male television actors
- German Jews
- People from Hamburg
- Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
- German emigrants to England
- British people of Czech-Jewish descent
- 20th-century German male actors
- German people of Czech-Jewish descent
- Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom