Background
Erich von Stroheim was born on September 22, 1885 as Erich Oswald Stroheim in Vienna, Austria. Son of Benno and Johanna (Von Bondy) Von Stroheim.
Erich von Stroheim was born on September 22, 1885 as Erich Oswald Stroheim in Vienna, Austria. Son of Benno and Johanna (Von Bondy) Von Stroheim.
He apparently served for a period in the Austro-Hungarian army, but when he went to the United States in 1909, he created a new background for himself according to which he sprang from aristocratic, Catholic stock and had had a distinguished military career, a story he stuck to for the rest of his life. He worked at various occupations, including writing, until lie first appeared on screen in 1914.
In the triple capacity of actor, military adviser, and assistant to the director, he was on hand during the filming of D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. His Prussian looks were much in demand in villainous roles after America’s entry into World War I and it was then that he became known as “the man you love to hate.”
Blind Husbands (1918) marked his debut as a director and it is the only one of his films to survive in the form Stroheim intended. Like The Devil's Passkey (completed 1920, but now lost) and Foolish Wives (1922), it dealt with an adulterous relationship in a cynical and detailed style. With no apparent concern for budget, Stroheim proved too expensive for Universal, and he was replaced before completing his film Merry-Go-Round in 1922. Moving to the Goldwyn studios, Stroheim undertook a project unparalleled in its scale, a totally faithful screen version of Frank Norris’ novel McTeague.
Stroheim turned McTeague into an epic lasting over ten hours. Subsequent reductions proved unacceptable to the studio, which had meanwhile been merged with Metro and was now under the direction of Louis B. Mayer. Mayer turned the film over to Irving G. Thalberg, who had originally fired Stroheim from Universal, and the film was finally released, as Greed. The Merry Widow, made in 1925, was successful. Away from MGM, he took on another film too expensive for his producer and The Wedding March (1928) in its released form was not edited to Stroheim’s liking. Production of Queen Kelly was shut down after Stroheim had shot little more than half of what he intended. This fiasco left him to earn a living as a screenwriter and actor, but in 1932 he was given a last chance to direct at Fox.
Walking Down Broadway was finished quickly and cheaply, but the decadent touch Stroheim had given it shocked the Fox executives. It was partly re-shot by other directors and released as Hello, Sister!
Stroheim never worked as a director again. For the rest of his life he acted, both in America and Europe. At least three of his roles, in Jean Renoir’s La grande illusion and in Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (in which he played the German general Erwin Rommel) and Sunset Boulevard, remain classic portrayals.
In 1956, Stroheim began to suffer severe back pain that was diagnosed as cancer. He eventually became paralyzed and was carried to his drawing room to receive the Legion of Honor award from an official delegation. He died at his chateau on May 12, 1957 at age 71, accompanied by his longtime lover, Denise Vernac.
(. . .Stroheim's masterpiece about human degradation, 'Gre...)
(Product Details Hardcover: 330 pages Publisher: Little, B...)
(He was the most brilliant, obsessive, secretive, far-sigh...)
(Blind Husbands / The Great Gabbo: Francelia Billington, P...)
1919
Quotations:
"Lubitsch shows you first the king on the throne, then as he is in the bedroom. I show you the king in the bedroom so you'll know just what he is when you see him on his throne."
"If you live in France, for instance, and you have written one good book, or painted one good picture, or directed one outstanding film fifty years ago and nothing else since, you are still recognized and honored accordingly. People take their hats off to you and call you "maître". They do not forget. In Hollywood—in Hollywood, you're as good as your last picture. If you didn't have one in production within the last three months, you're forgotten, no matter what you have achieved ere this."
Married Marguerite Knox (deceased). Married second, May Jones.; married 3d, Valerie Marguerite Germonprez, October 16, 1920.
