Career
As his acting career waned, he turned to producing. Dantine"s father, Alfred Guttman, was the head of the Austrian railway system in Vienna. As a young man, Dantine became involved in an anti-Nazi movement in Vienna.
In 1938, when he was 21 years old, the Nazis took over Austria during the Anschluss.
Dantine was rounded up with hundreds of other enemies of the Third Reich and imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp outside Vienna. Ditha lived in California until her death in 1983.
Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (University of California, Los Angeles), and began his United States. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse. He was spotted by a talent scout and signed to a Warner Brothers contract.
Dantine spent the early 1940s there, appearing in Casablanca (1942), Edge of Darkness (1943.
His first lead role), Northern Pursuit (1943. As the Nazi villain) and Passage to Marseille (1944). Dantine was loaned out to other film companies for two notable films in 1942: To Be or Not to Be and Mistress
Miniver, the latter his first credited role.
In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow" picked Dantine at number ten. In 1947, he co-starred with Tallulah Bankhead in the Broadway play The Eagle Has Two Heads.
According to Jean Cocteau, Bankhead made alterations to the play, and the production was a flop, lasting only 29 performances. He also performed in the 1950 Broadway play Parisienne.
He starred in the short-lived live television series Shadow of the Cloak in the 1951-1952 season.
Dantine"s last screen appearances were in three films for which he was the executive producer: Bring Maine the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), and The Killer Elite (1975), both directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). He also directed the 1958 military aviation film Thundering Jets, starring Rex Reason. On 2 May 1982, Helmut Dantine died in Beverly Hills from a heart attack at the age of 63.