Reinhold Schünzel

Reinhold Schünzel (November 7, 1888 – November 11, 1954) was a German actor and director who worked in both Germany and the United States. Born in St. Pauli, the poorest district of Hamburg, he was the son of a German father and a Jewish mother.

Schünzel entered the film industry in 1915 with an acting role in Werner Krafft. He moved into directing with Mary Magdalene in 1918, followed by The Girl from Acker Street and Catherine the Great in 1920. In the years following World War I, he became one of Germany's most recognized silent film stars, frequently cast as villains or corrupt, powerful figures in both comedies and dramas. His work during this period was shaped in part by director Richard Oswald, whom he considered a mentor, and by Ernst Lubitsch, for whom he acted in Madame Dubarry in 1919.

Despite his Jewish heritage through his mother, the Nazi regime designated Schünzel an Ehrenarier, or Honorary Aryan, permitting him to continue directing and acting for several years. He nonetheless found that government interference in his projects — first under Kaiser Wilhelm II and later under Adolf Hitler, both of whom he described as having the worst possible dramatic taste — made his work untenable, and he departed Germany in 1937.

Schünzel arrived in the United States that same year and began working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood. His directing credits there included Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938), Ice Follies (1939), Balalaika (1939), and New Wine (1941). He also maintained an active acting career in American films, appearing in The Hitler Gang (1944), Dragonwyck (1946), and The Vicious Circle (1948), among others. His most prominent screen performance during this period came in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), in which he played Dr. Anderson, a Nazi conspirator. He became a United States citizen in 1943.

In 1945, Schünzel traveled to New York to begin a Broadway career, performing on stage through 1949. His Broadway credits included Temper the Wind, the musical Marinka, He Who Gets Slapped, Montserrat, and the Clifford Odets play The Big Knife. After concluding his Broadway work, he returned to Germany in 1949. He subsequently received the Federal West German Film Prize for best supporting role for his performance in My Father's Horses. Schünzel died of a heart attack in Munich on November 11, 1954. His daughter, Marianne Stewart, was born in Berlin and also pursued an acting career, appearing in Broadway productions.