William Dieterle facts for kids

William Dieterle (born July 15, 1893 – died December 9, 1972) was a famous German-born actor and film director. He moved to the United States in 1930 because of difficult times in Germany. In Hollywood, he mostly worked as a director. He became a United States citizen in 1937. Later, in the late 1950s, he moved back to Germany.

Some of his most well-known films include The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941). His movie The Life of Emile Zola (1937) won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This was only the second movie about a real person's life to win that award.

William Dieterle's Early Life and Career

William Dieterle was born Wilhelm Dieterle in Ludwigshafen, Germany. He was the youngest of nine children. His father, Jacob, worked in a factory. His family was quite poor when he was a child. He earned money by doing various jobs, like carpentry and collecting scrap metal.

He became interested in theater at a young age. He would even put on plays for his friends and family in the family barn. When he was sixteen, Dieterle joined a traveling theater group. He started as a handy-man and helped move scenery. Soon, his good looks and strong ambition helped him get roles as a main romantic actor in plays.

In 1919, a famous theater director named Max Reinhardt noticed him in Berlin. Reinhardt hired him as an actor until 1924. To earn more money, Dieterle started acting in German films in 1921. He quickly became a popular actor who played many different characters. He often played simple, country-style characters with a lot of energy. However, he really wanted to become a director. In 1921, Dieterle married Charlotte Hagenbruch, who was also an actress and later a writer for movies.

In 1923, Dieterle used his own money to make his first film, Der Mensch am Wege. This movie was based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy. A young actress named Marlene Dietrich also starred in the film. Dieterle later said that he and his team were "very young, enthusiastic, and revolutionary people who wanted to do something different." The movie didn't make money, but it was an interesting experiment.

In 1924, Dieterle left Reinhardt's company and started his own theater group in Berlin. However, it didn't last long. He also went back to acting in films for several years. He appeared in well-known German movies like Waxworks (1924) and F. W. Murnau's Faust (1926). In 1927, Dieterle and his wife started their own film company called Charrha-Film. Dieterle then returned to directing films, often playing the main role himself.

Moving to Hollywood in the 1930s

By 1930, life in Germany became more difficult. Like many people from the German film industry, Dieterle and his wife moved to the United States. Dieterle remembered that getting a call from Hollywood was a running joke in Berlin. But one night, it really happened for him!

Dieterle was offered a job at First National Pictures. They wanted him to make German-language versions of Hollywood films. Studios were worried about losing international business when sound films became popular. However, when Dieterle and his group of actors arrived, they found the films had already been dubbed. Instead, they were chosen to act in German versions of four Hollywood films. One of these was Lloyd Bacon's Moby Dick (1930), where Dieterle played Captain Ahab.

After these four films, Warner Brothers' Vice President of Production, Hal B. Wallis, was very impressed. He asked Dieterle to stay in Hollywood. Dieterle quickly got used to making films in Hollywood. He directed his first American film, The Last Flight, in 1931. This movie was about four American fighter pilots trying to rebuild their lives in Paris after World War I. It starred Richard Barthelmess and Helen Chandler. The story was compared to the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Even though it wasn't a big hit at first, it was later praised as a forgotten masterpiece in 1970.

Dieterle's early Hollywood career wasn't very famous. He directed films like the W. C. Fields musical Her Majesty, Love (1932), Jewel Robbery (1932), Adorable (1933), and Fog Over Frisco (1934) with Bette Davis.

Directing A Midsummer Night's Dream

In 1934, Max Reinhardt was putting on a play called A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl. Dieterle convinced Warner Brothers to pay for a big movie version of the play with many famous actors. This film, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), helped Dieterle's career a lot. He became a major Hollywood director. The movie starred James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Joe E. Brown, and a 15-year-old Mickey Rooney. Some people had mixed feelings about how Shakespeare's play was "Americanized," but the movie was successful when it came out. Today, it is seen as a classic film. During filming, Reinhardt would help the actors practice, and then Dieterle would direct the movie scenes.

Famous Biographical Films

Dieterle directed the first of his very successful "biography films" with actor Paul Muni. This started with The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936). The film showed Muni as the scientist who discovered how vaccinations work. It also showed his struggles against doctors who didn't believe him. The movie was a success with both critics and audiences. Muni won an Oscar for Best Actor. This film also helped Warner Brothers become known for making important, high-quality movies.

Dieterle was asked to direct several films he didn't really like. He said that after a success, Warner Brothers would give him a "terrible" movie to keep him from getting too proud. These films included a version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (called Satan Met a Lady with Bette Davis), The Prince and the Pauper, and a movie about Florence Nightingale, The White Angel.

Dieterle made another biographical film with Paul Muni, The Life of Emile Zola (1937). This movie was about the life of the French writer Zola. It showed how Zola reacted to the Dreyfus affair. In this real-life event, a Jewish French officer was wrongly accused of treason and put in prison. The film was a huge success. One critic called it "the finest historical film ever made and the greatest screen biography." It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. It won for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Joseph Schildkraut (who played Dreyfus), and Best Screenplay. Dieterle himself was nominated for Best Director but did not win. This was his only directing nomination.

Dieterle's next film was Blockade (1938). It starred Henry Fonda as a loyal fighter and Madeline Carroll as a spy who falls in love with him during the Spanish Civil War. The movie was openly against certain political ideas and criticized countries that did nothing while bad things happened. Its premiere was canceled, and it caused some discussion when it was released. Later, in the 1940s and 1950s, some government committees looked at the film with suspicion.

Juarez (1939) was the third biographical film Dieterle made with Muni. It showed the life of Mexican politician Benito Juárez and his conflict with Emperor Maximilian I. When it came out, Dieterle was called "the most important liberal director of the 30s." In the 1970s, Dieterle said the movie was very relevant because it showed a big army struggling against guerrilla fighters.

Dieterle also had great success with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (also 1939). This film starred Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and a 19-year-old Maureen O'Hara as Esmeralda. Dieterle made two more biographical films, both starring Edward G. Robinson instead of Muni. Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) was about Paul Ehrlich's discovery of a medicine called Salvarsan. A Dispatch from Reuter's (also 1940) was about the man who started the first news agency. These were Dieterle's last films for Warner Brothers.

Hollywood Career in the 1940s

Some people at the time thought Dieterle's career peaked in the 1930s. However, many now believe that his films from the 1940s include some of his best work. For example, film critic David Thomson felt that Dieterle's later works showed his talent for grand and romantic stories.

The Devil and Daniel Webster (also known as All That Money Can Buy, 1941) is a fantasy film. It is a loose version of the Faust story, set in New Hampshire in the 1840s. It stars Walter Huston as the devil and Edward Arnold as a politician. They fight over the soul of Jabez Stone, who made a bad deal with the devil. The movie wasn't successful when it first came out. But today, it is considered a classic. It has great cinematography by Joe August, an Oscar-winning music score by Bernard Herrmann, and impressive special effects.

After a biographical film about President Andrew Johnson called Tennessee Johnson (1942), and a remake of Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich, Dieterle directed Love Letters (1945). This movie stars Joseph Cotten as a soldier who writes love letters for a friend during World War II. Jennifer Jones plays the woman who receives the letters and falls in love with the writer. Years later, Cotten finds Jones, but she has lost her memory and seems to have killed her husband. The film was produced by Jones's husband at the time, David O. Selznick. He also produced Dieterle's next film.

Portrait of Jennie (1948) stars Cotten and Jones as a painter and his inspiration. After they meet in Central Park, Cotten paints a portrait of Jones that makes him famous. But he can't find his muse, who he has fallen in love with. The movie's cost grew a lot during filming. Selznick had to sell Dieterle's contract to Paramount Pictures. After this, Dieterle's career didn't reach the same heights as before.

Later Career and Retirement

Dieterle's career slowed down in the 1950s. This was during a time in America called McCarthyism, where people were investigated for suspected communist ties. Even though he was never officially put on a blacklist, his film Blockade (1938) and some people he worked with were seen as suspicious. Also, in the 1930s, he and his wife had helped people leave Nazi Germany. They also helped many friends who had left-wing political views, like Bertolt Brecht. Dieterle said about this time: "Although I was never to my knowledge on any blacklist, I must have been on some kind of gray list because I couldn't get any work."

He continued to make American films in the 1950s. These included the crime film The Turning Point (1952) and Salome (1953) with Rita Hayworth. The filming of Elephant Walk (1954) with Elizabeth Taylor was delayed for three months. This was because the State Department would not let Dieterle travel to Ceylon. He made two more Hollywood films before moving back to Europe. These were a biographical film about Richard Wagner, Magic Fire (1955), and Omar Khayyam (1957).

He made some films in Germany and Italy. He also made an American film that wasn't very successful, Quick, Let's Get Married (1964). This movie was also known as The Confession or Seven Different Ways and starred Ginger Rogers. He retired from filmmaking in 1965. He moved back to Germany and became the director of the Der Grüne Wagen theater. This theater was based in Taufkirchen near Munich. He ran it with his wife, Charlotte Hagenbruch. After his wife died in May 1968, he ran the theater as a touring company with his new wife, Elisabeth Daum. Dieterle directed the group for several years, with Elisabeth Bergner as his main actress.

Dieterle is remembered for always wearing a large hat and white gloves on set. He did this because in his early career, he had to quickly switch between acting and technical jobs without getting his hands dirty.

Selected Filmography

Images for kids

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  William Dieterle with Ricarda Huch in Berlin (1946)

See also

In Spanish: William Dieterle para niños

• The Continental Players, co-founded by Dieterle