Zita Johann

Zita Johann, born Elizabeth Johann on 14 July 1904 in Deutschbentschek, a village near Timișoara in what was then Austria-Hungary and is now Romania, was an Austrian-American actress whose career spanned Broadway, Hollywood, and community theater. A German-speaking Banat Swabian, Johann emigrated to the United States in 1911 when her father, Stefan Johann, a hussar officer, relocated the family. She began performing in high school plays and later gained stage experience with the Theatre Guild Repertory Company in touring productions of Peer Gynt, The Devil's Disciple, and He Who Gets Slapped.

Johann made her Broadway debut in 1924, appearing in Dawn at the Sam H. Harris Theatre, and continued performing on the New York stage through 1942. Her Broadway credits included The Goat Song at the Theatre Guild in 1926, Machinal at the Plymouth Theatre in 1928, Troyka at the Hudson Theatre and Uncle Vanya at the Booth Theatre both in 1930, Tomorrow and Tomorrow at Henry Miller's Theatre in 1931, Seven Keys to Baldpate at the National Theatre in 1935, The Burning Deck at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre in 1940, and Broken Journey at Henry Miller's Theatre in 1942. She also appeared in the production Panic during her Broadway years. Johann turned down the lead in Universal's 1929 theatrical version of Show Boat in order to star in Machinal alongside a young Clark Gable.

Her film career began with D.W. Griffith's 1931 production The Struggle, a film partly inspired by Griffith's own experience with alcoholism. Johann had long admired Griffith and welcomed the opportunity to work with him, though the film was not a commercial success. The following year she appeared in what became her most recognized screen role, starring opposite Boris Karloff in Karl Freund's The Mummy (1932). Johann felt a personal connection to the material given her beliefs in reincarnation and mysticism, though her experience on set was difficult. Director Freund forced her to film a scene, later deleted, without protection from lions, and pressured her to perform a semi-nude scene. She maintained that Freund positioned her as a potential scapegoat in the event his directorial debut failed. Johann went on to appear in The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) and Luxury Liner (1933), though neither matched the profile of The Mummy. When RKO sought to cast her in Thirteen Women, which she regarded as a tawdry melodrama, she requested release from her contract and left Hollywood after seven films. Her final screen appearance came in the 1986 horror film Raiders of the Living Dead.

Between her film commitments, Johann signed a contract with MGM that included a script approval clause, an unusual provision reflecting the studio's eagerness to secure her. She exercised the clause extensively, declining most of the scripts she received, and reportedly asked Irving Thalberg directly why he produced such poor pictures. Approximately six months later, she requested to be released from the contract. Johann was candid about her dislike of Hollywood throughout her life, describing it in her New York Post obituary as a personality and sex factory with no genuine interest in acting, and characterizing the studio system as one in which moguls sold performers to the public the way a grocer sold canned goods.

Johann preferred the theater, where she valued the rehearsal time, the direct relationship with an audience, and the less exhausting pace of production. After leaving Hollywood she returned to the stage, collaborating with John Houseman and Orson Welles. In 1962 she served as a guest artist at Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack, New York, where she directed Don Juan in Hell. Beyond performing, Johann wrote plays and film scripts under the pseudonyms Joan Wolfe and Elizabeth Yorke, producing works including Emily's Week and The Raw Deal under the Joan Wolfe name. In the 1970s she filmed a television program called Zita and Her Friends, designed to improve communication between parents and children. She also taught acting to children from her home and worked with people with learning disorders.

Johann married three times. Her first husband was John Houseman, whom she wed on 5 October 1929. Houseman, born Jacques Haussmann in Bucharest, had been working as a grain dealer when the Wall Street crash eliminated his business weeks after the wedding. Johann encouraged him to pursue a career in theater. The couple lived in Malibu during her film years, where Johann also painted, read, and played violin. They divorced in Mexico on 13 September 1933. She briefly dated John Huston during this period and sustained injuries in February 1933 when she went through the windshield of his car after he drove drunk. Her second marriage, to retired film producer John McCormick, followed a seven-day courtship and took place on 9 July 1935. McCormick proved controlling and struggled with alcoholism; the marriage ended on 18 August 1938. Johann's third husband was Bernard Shedd, an economist and publisher whom she married on 18 April 1941 after meeting him while he was stationed in California during military service. They divorced in the 1950s. Johann raised money for war-related charities during World War II, organized performances for American soldiers, and at her third wedding collected funds for Finnish war orphans.

A self-described mystic who believed in reincarnation, Johann prayed before each performance and described her pre-show ritual as dying unto herself in order to become her character. She later moved back to New York and settled in Rockland County, where she lived for decades, devoting her time to community work and charitable causes. Johann died of pneumonia at a hospital in Nyack, New York, on 24 September 1993, at the age of 89. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered in a stream on a family farm in Upstate New York.