Background
Klein-Rogge was born in Cologne, Germany.
Klein-Rogge was born in Cologne, Germany.
Klein-Rogge is known for playing sinister figures in films in the 1920s and 1930s as well as being a main-stay in director Fritz Language"s Weimar-era films. He is probably best known in popular culture, particularly to English-speaking audiences, for playing the archetypal mad scientist role of Central America Rotwang in Language"s Metropolis and as the criminal genius Doctor Mabuse. He began taking acting lessons while studying art history in Berlin and Bonn.
Klein-Rogge made his acting debut at in 1909, playing Cassius in Julius Caesar in Halberstadt.
Klein-Rogge went on to play in theaters located in Düsseldorf, Kiel and Aachen. In Aachen, Klein-Rogge met actress and screenwriter Thea von Harbou.
The two married in 1914. In 1915, Klein-Rogge joined Nuremberg"s Städtische Bühnen theatre as both an actor and director
In 1919, Klein-Rogge began acting in films.
He appeared in an uncredited role as the criminal in Caligari. During this time, von Harbou was having an affair with director Fritz Language and eventually left Klein-Rogge to marry Language. Despite the split, Klein-Rogge made several films that were written by von Harbou and directed by Language, including Destiny, Doctor Mabuse the Gambler, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis and Spies.
Klein-Rogge"s intense look lead him to similar roles such as a tyrant in Fritz Wendhausen"s Der steinerne Reiter, a pirate in Arthur Robison"s Pietro der Korsar, and the Czar in Alexandre Volkoff"s Casanova.
Klein-Rogge"s last film with Language was Mabuse in 1933. Klein-Rogge played the lead roles in two films directed by von Harbou: Elisabeth und der Narr and Hanneles Himmelfahrt.