Background
He was born in Brno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czechoslovakian Republic), and died in Vienna, Austria from complications of asthma.
Actor director educationist screenwriter
He was born in Brno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czechoslovakian Republic), and died in Vienna, Austria from complications of asthma.
He appeared in more than 60 films between 1926 and 1962, as well as directing 20 films between 1933 and 1962. Haas began acting as a character actor in American films during the mid-1940s. In 1951 he launched a successful if unacclaimed career as a film director in Hollywood with a string of B movie melodramas, usually starring blonde actresses in the role of a predatory mantrap.
Haas usually cast himself as the male lead in the films although the female role almost always dominated the storyline and was usually exclusively promoted on film posters.
Cleo Moore starred in seven films for Haas, becoming a well-known film star in that era. Other actresses who starred in Haas" films were Beverly Michaels and Carol Morris.
The Haas pictures generally received poor reviews but were for the most part commercially successful, and on occasion featured such well-known names as Eleanor Parker, John Agar, Vince Edwards, Joan Blondell, Agnes Moorehead, Julie London, Corinne Griffith, and Marie Windsor. Haas" final film, Paradise Alley was rejected by the major studios and sat unreleased for over three years, finally surfacing in a limited run in 1962.