Mischa Auer

Mischa Auer, born Mikhail Semyonovich Unkovsky on 17 November 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, was a Russian-American actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television across several decades. His mother, Zoya Lvovna Unkovskaya, was the eldest daughter of Hungarian-born violinist Leopold Auer, whose surname Mischa would eventually adopt. His father, Semyon Ivanovich Unkovsky, was an Imperial Russian Navy officer who retired in 1906 and settled in Kaluga, Russia, where he died in 1921. During the Russian Civil War, Auer was reunited with his mother, who subsequently died of typhus. Leopold Auer, who had emigrated to the United States following the Russian Revolution, brought his grandson to America in August 1920.

Auer began his performing career in the 1920s at Bertha Kalich's Thalia Yiddish Theater in New York. His Broadway career extended from 1925 to 1946 and included appearances in the musical The Lady Comes Across, as well as the plays Lovely Me, The Wild Duck, and Morals. He transitioned to Hollywood in the late 1920s, making his film debut in 1928 in Something Always Happens. Through the early 1930s he took on small and largely uncredited parts in films including Rasputin and the Empress, Viva Villa!, The Yellow Ticket, the George Gershwin musical Delicious, Paramount on Parade, and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer.

The trajectory of Auer's film career shifted substantially in 1936 when he was cast as Alice Brady's protégé in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey. The role earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and marked a decisive turn away from the villainous characters he had previously portrayed. He noted of the performance that it made a comic out of him, and from that point he was consistently cast in comedic roles. He played ballet instructor Kolenkov in the Best Picture-winning You Can't Take It with You and appeared as a prince-turned-fashion designer in Walter Wanger's Vogues of 1938. His comedy credits also included One Hundred Men and a Girl, Destry Rides Again, Hold That Ghost, Spring Parade, Hellzapoppin', Cracked Nuts, Lady in the Dark, and Up in Mabel's Room. He was additionally part of the ensemble cast of And Then There Were None and appeared in two films alongside opera singer Lily Pons.

In the 1950s, Auer moved into television, appearing on episodic series including Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Studio One, Broadway Television Theatre, and The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre. He appeared in Orson Welles's Mr. Arkadin in 1955. During the 1960s he worked in France and Italy, appearing in films including The Christmas That Almost Wasn't.

Auer married four times and had three children. His first marriage, to Norma Tillman in 1931, lasted until 1941 and produced a son, Anthony, and a daughter, Zoia. Later that same year he married Joyce Hunter, with whom he lived until 1950. His third marriage, to Susanne Kalish beginning 5 May 1950, lasted until 1957 and produced one daughter. His fourth wife was Elise Souls Lee, whom he married in 1965. Auer died of cardiovascular disease in Rome on 5 March 1967 and was interred at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Gloversville, New York.