Curt Goetz

Curt Goetz, born Kurt Walter Götz on 17 November 1888 in Mainz, Germany, was a Swiss German actor, writer, and film director who also worked on Broadway. He died on 12 September 1960 in Grabs, St. Gallen. His father, Bernhard Götz, was a Swiss wine examiner who died in 1890, after which Goetz and his mother relocated to Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, where she ran a private clinic. His mother was of Italian-French descent, born Selma Rocco. Goetz held Swiss nationality from birth through his father's lineage.

After graduating from City High School in Halle in 1906, where he performed the role of Franz Moor in Schiller's The Robbers, Goetz pursued formal acting training under Emanuel Reicher in Berlin. His stepfather, who entered the family after his mother remarried, supported and financed his early theatrical work. In 1907 Goetz made his professional stage debut at the Stadttheater in Rostock and began writing his first sketches for the stage. He subsequently performed at theatres in Nuremberg before moving to Berlin. His screen career began in 1912 when he played the lead in the silent film Black Blood, directed by Harry Piel.

Goetz appeared in numerous silent films through the following decade, working primarily in comedies. Among these was I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, in which he played Dr. Kersten. Actor Max Landa was among his colleagues during this period. He married Erna Nitter in 1914; the marriage ended in divorce in 1917. In 1923 he married actress Valérie von Martens, whom he had met while performing in Vienna. The two became a professional partnership, touring together and performing in productions Goetz himself had written.

As a playwright, Goetz produced a substantial body of work in German, beginning with Der Lampenschirm in 1911. His plays included Hokuspokus (1926), Der Lügner und die Nonne (1928), and Frauenarzt Dr. med. Hiob Prätorius (1934), several of which were adapted into films multiple times over the following decades. He was regarded as one of the most prominent German comedy writers of his era and was frequently compared to Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, to whom he was a distant relative.

In 1939 Goetz traveled to Hollywood to study filmmaking and chose to remain there with Valérie when war broke out in Europe. During his time in California he worked with director Reinhold Schunzel, was signed by MGM, and contributed to a number of film scripts. He and Valérie purchased a farm in Van Nuys, California, where they raised chickens. While in California, Goetz wrote the novel Tatjana (1944) and drafted new versions of existing works, including a reworked play that became The House in Montevideo. He produced that play at Broadway's Playhouse Theatre in 1945. His Broadway credits also include It's a Gift and the play Isabel, both from 1945.

Goetz also worked as a film director, co-directing Doctor Praetorius (1950) with Karl Peter Gillmann and co-directing The House in Montevideo (1951) with Valérie von Martens, both produced in West Germany. He acted in both films, playing Dr. Hiob Prätorius and Professor Traugott Nägler respectively. His play Dr. med. Hiob Prätorius served as the basis for the 1951 Hollywood film People Will Talk, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Earlier screenwriting credits include Friedrich Schiller (1923), which he also directed, and Napoleon Is to Blame for Everything (1938), in which he also acted.

Goetz and Valérie returned to Europe in 1945 and settled in Switzerland near Lake Thun. He later wrote several novels, including Die Tote von Beverly Hills (1951). The couple subsequently moved to Liechtenstein. Goetz began publishing his memoirs under the title Die Memoiren des Peterhans von Binningen, the first volume of which appeared in 1960, the year of his death.