Rudolph Schildkraut

From Wikipedia Rudolph Schildkraut April 27 1862 July 15 1930 was an Austrian film and theatre actor Schildkraut was born in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire to a Jewish family His parents ran a hotel He grew up in Brăila Romania In Vienna he received acting lessons from Friedrich Mitterwurzer He debuted in the early 1880s in Sopro his first solid role came in 1885 in Krems In 1893 he moved to Vienna to an engagement at the newly opened Raimund Theater In 1898 he moved to the Carl Theatre Among other things he played the character Wurm in Love and Intrigue In 1900 he came to the German Theatre in Hamburg 1905 to the German German Theatre in Berlin There he became one of the most important actor in the theatre company players of Max Reinhardt His Shylock which he played in 1905 and 1913 in Reinhardts productions of The Merchant of Venice was praised by Fritz Kortner as a monument to the art of acting Other major roles were the title role in King Lear 1908 Mephisto in Faust I 1909 Muley Hassan in Friedrich Schillers Fiesco 1909 the gravedigger in Hamlet 1909 and Peter Bast in Knut Hamsuns From the devil fetched 1914 Schildkraut performed for the first time in the United States in 191011 Schildkraut was known as a film actor in the German Empire in the early silent era He starred in several film dramas His last Europeanmade film was a biography of the German Zionism founder Theodor Herzl in which he played Herb Schildt The struggling Israel In 1920 he moved permanently to America and made his debut the same year in New York City in the play Silent Forces From 1922 he also played in the English language In 1925 he founded his own Jewish theatre in The Bronx In his last five years he appeared in several Hollywood productions His most notable film which raised his profile in America was The King of Kings by Cecil B DeMille in 1927 in which he played the High Priest Caiaphas He was married to Erna Weinstein with whom he had a son Joseph Schildkraut 18961964 who was also known as an actor Schildkraut died at the age of 67 years of a heart attack in Los Angeles He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery Hollywood CA His son also died at the same age also of a heart attack