Anton Diffring

Anton Diffring, born Alfred Pollack on 20 October 1916 in Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate, was a German actor whose career spanned film, television, and stage work in Britain and internationally from the 1940s through the 1980s. His father, Solomon Pollack, was a Jewish shop-owner who survived Nazi rule without internment, while his mother, Bertha Pollack, née Diffring, was Christian. Diffring trained as an actor in both Berlin and Vienna before leaving Germany prior to World War II, though the precise date of his departure remains disputed. One account, referenced in the audio commentary for the Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis, places his departure in 1936, attributing it to persecution related to his homosexuality. Other sources suggest he left in 1939 and subsequently settled in Canada. His sister Jacqueline Diffring relocated to England, where she established herself as a sculptor.

After arriving in England, Diffring became fluent in English and worked for a period as an interpreter at the War Office. He made two uncredited film appearances in 1940, including a role as the officer of U-37 in the Ealing Studios production Convoy, but his acting career did not gain meaningful momentum until 1950. His blond hair, pale blue eyes, and angular features led casting directors to place him repeatedly in roles as Nazi military officers, a pattern that defined much of his screen work throughout the 1950s and beyond. Among his World War II film credits are Albert R.N. (1953), The Colditz Story (1955), The Heroes of Telemark (1965), The Blue Max (1966), Where Eagles Dare (1968), Zeppelin (1971), and Escape to Victory (1981), in which he appeared as a football match commentator. He portrayed SS officer Reinhard Heydrich in Operation Daybreak (1975) and played Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the American television miniseries The Winds of War (1983). Not all of his wartime roles were German: he played a Polish parachutist in The Red Beret (1953) and a British SAS officer in the Italian production Uccidete Rommel (1969), filmed in the Egyptian desert.

Diffring also built a notable presence in horror films. He starred in The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960), and took the lead role in the television pilot Tales of Frankenstein (1958). His international film work included Fahrenheit 451 (1966), the English-language adaptation directed by François Truffaut. On television, he appeared in the miniseries Flambards, playing an aeronautical pioneer and German resident of Britain in the period just before the First World War, who assists a character obsessed with flying. His final screen performance came in the 1988 BBC Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis, once again in the role of a Nazi.

His stage career included both Broadway and West End work. In 1946, Diffring appeared on Broadway at the Barbizon-Plaza Theatre in The Constant Wife, playing the role of John Middleton. On the West End, he took the title role in the musical Mister Venus, opposite Frankie Howerd, performing two solo numbers, "Love Like Ours" and "Tradition." The production, with a book by Ray Galton and Johnny Speight and music by Trevor H. Stanford and Norman Newell, opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 23 October 1958 following an earlier run at the Manchester Opera House, but closed after only sixteen performances. Additional stage credits include I Am a Camera (1955) as Fritz Wendel, Henry V at the Mermaid Theatre in 1960, and Out of Bounds (1962–63) at Wyndham's Theatre, in which he played Anton Lesh. The West End production of Out of Bounds later served as the basis for the 1964 West German comedy A Mission for Mr. Dodd, in which Diffring also appeared.

Diffring died on 19 May 1989 at his home in Châteauneuf-Grasse in the South of France, at the age of 72. His death was attributed to cancer, though a 2002 interview with his longtime friend Arthur Brauss indicated he had died of complications from AIDS. His ashes were interred in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church in the village of White Colne, Essex.