Felix Bressart
64 movies
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- Mar 2, 1892
- Died
- Mar 17, 1949 (age 57)
- Place of birth
- Eydtkuhnen, East Prussia, Germany [now Chernyshevskoe, Russia]
- Also known as
- Феликс Брессарт
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Felix Bressart (March 2, 1892 – March 17, 1949) was a German-American actor of stage and screen.
Felix Bressart (pronounced "BRESS-ert") was born in East Prussia, Germany (now part of Russia) and was already a very experienced stage actor when he had his film debut in 1928. He started off as a supporting actor, e.g. as the Bailiff in the box-office hit Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930), but had soon established himself in leading roles of minor movies. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Jewish-born Bressart had to leave Germany and continued his career in German-speaking movies in Austria, where Jewish artists were still relatively safe. After no fewer than 30 films in eight years, he emigrated to the United States.
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One of Bressart's former European colleagues was Joe Pasternak, now a successful Hollywood producer. Bressart's first American film was Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), a vehicle for Universal Pictures' top attraction, Deanna Durbin. Pasternak also selected the reliable Bressart to perform in a screen test opposite Pasternak's newest discovery, Gloria Jean. The influential German community in Hollywood helped to establish Bressart in America, as his earliest American movies were directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Henry Koster, and Wilhelm Thiele (director of Die Drei von der Tankstelle).
Bressart scored a great success in Lubitsch's Ninotchka, produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM signed Bressart to a studio contract in 1939. Most of his MGM work consisted of featured roles in major films like Edison, the Man.
He combined his mildly inflected East European accent with a soft-spoken delivery to create kindly, friendly characters, as in Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, in which he sensitively recites Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech from The Merchant of Venice. Lubitsch also directed Bressart to similar effect in The Shop Around the Corner.
Bressart soon became a popular character actor in films like Blossoms in the Dust (1941), The Seventh Cross (1944), and Without Love (1945). Perhaps his largest role was in RKO Radio Pictures' "B" musical comedy Ding Dong Williams, filmed in 1945. Bressart, billed third, played the bemused supervisor of a movie studio's music department, and appeared in formal wear to conduct Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu."
After almost 40 Hollywood pictures, Felix Bressart suddenly died of leukemia at the age of 57. His last film was My Friend Irma (1949), the movie version of a popular radio show. Bressart died during production, forcing the producers to finish the film with Hans Conried. In the final film, Conried speaks throughout, but Bressart is still seen in the long shots.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Felix Bressart, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Profiles IMDb
Known for
Felix Bressart: movies and TV shows
Acting (64)
- 1949 Take One False Step
as Professor Morris Avrum
- 1948 Portrait of Jennie
as Pete
- 1948 A Song Is Born
as Professor Gerkikoff
- 1946 I've Always Loved You
as Frederick Hassman
- 1946 Her Sister's Secret
as Pepe
- 1946 The Thrill of Brazil
as Ludwig Kriegspiel
- 1946 Ding Dong Williams
as Hugo Meyerheld
- 1945 Dangerous Partners
as Professor Budlow
- 1945 Without Love
as Professor Grinza
- 1944 Blonde Fever
as Johnny
- 1944 Greenwich Village
as Hofer
- 1944 The Seventh Cross
as Poldi Schlamm
- 1944 Song of Russia
as Petrov
- 1943 Don't Be a Sucker!
as Anti-Nazi Teacher
- 1943 Above Suspicion
as Mr. A. Werner
- 1943 Three Hearts for Julia
as Anton Ottoway
- 1942 Iceland
as Papa Jonsdottir
- 1942 Crossroads
as Dr. Andre Tessier
- 1942 To Be or Not to Be
as Greenberg
- 1942 Mr. and Mrs. North
as Arthur Talbot
- 1941 Kathleen
as Mr. Schoner
- 1941 Married Bachelor
as Professor Milic
- 1941 Blossoms in the Dust
as Dr. Max Breslar
- 1941 Ziegfeld Girl
as Mischa
- 1940 Comrade X
as Igor Yahupitz / Vanya
- 1940 Bitter Sweet
as Max
- 1940 Escape
as Fritz Keller
- 1940 Third Finger, Left Hand
as August "Gussie" Winkel
- 1940 Edison, the Man
as Michael Simon
- 1940 It All Came True
as The Great Boldini
- 1940 The Shop Around the Corner
as Pirovitch
- 1939 Swanee River
as Henry Kleber
- 1939 Ninotchka
as Comrade Buljanoff
- 1939 Bridal Suite
as Maxl
- 1939 Three Smart Girls Grow Up
as Music Teacher
- 1936 Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
as Max Kaspar
- 1935 Four and a Half Musketeers
as Professor Volksmann
- 1935 Everything for the Company
as Philipp Sonndorfer
- 1935 Ball at the Savoy
as Birowitsch
- 1934 Peter
as Grandfather
- 1934 Salto in die Seligkeit
as Kriegel, Geheimdetektiv
- 1934 C'était un musicien
as Baron Vandernyff
- 1933 Wie d'Warret würkt
as Mr. Schramek
- 1933 ...und wer küßt mich?
as Direktor Ritter
- 1932 The Lucky Top Hat
as Gottfried Jonathan Bankbeamter
- 1932 Holzapfel Knows Everything
as Johannes Georg Holzapfel
- 1932 Visul lui Tanase
as star
- 1931 The Office Manager
as Joachim Reißnagel
- 1931 Comradeship
as Café Doorman (uncredited)
- 1931 Excursion into Life
as Hirsekorn - Schauspieler und Chauffeur
- 1931 Fanfare about love
as Major Fröschen
- 1931 No More Love
as Jean
- 1931 Terror of the Garrison
as Musketier Kulicke
- 1931 True Jacob
as Böcklein
- 1931 The Private Secretary
as Bankdiener Hasel
- 1930 Eine Freundin so goldig wie Du
as Richard
- 1930 Three Days in the Guardhouse
as Franz Nowotni
- 1930 Old Song
as Jacques
- 1930 The Three from the Filling Station
as Gerichtsvollzieher
- 1930 The Tender Relatives
as Onkel Emil
- 1930
- 1930 The Son of the White Mountain
as Jailer
- 1930
- 1928 Liebe im Kuhstall
as Der Gerichtsvollzieher