1892-03-02 ( 133 years old ) in Eydtkuhnen, East Prussia, Germany [now Chernyshevskoe, Russia]
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.
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.
Movies
Take One False Step
1949-08-14
Portrait of Jennie
1948-12-25
A Song Is Born
1948-10-19
I've Always Loved You
1946-12-02
Her Sister's Secret
1946-09-23
The Thrill of Brazil
1946-09-06
Ding Dong Williams
1946-04-15
Dangerous Partners
1945-06-07
Without Love
1945-03-22
Blonde Fever
1944-12-05
Greenwich Village
1944-09-27
The Seventh Cross
1944-07-24
Song of Russia
1944-02-10
Don't Be a Sucker!
1943-07-04
Above Suspicion
1943-05-31
Three Hearts for Julia
1943-05-21
Iceland
1942-09-21
Crossroads
1942-07-23
To Be or Not to Be
1942-03-06
Mr. and Mrs. North
1942-01-23
Kathleen
1941-12-18
Married Bachelor
1941-10-16
Blossoms in the Dust
1941-08-15
Ziegfeld Girl
1941-04-25
Comrade X
1940-12-13
Bitter Sweet
1940-11-08
Escape
1940-11-01
Third Finger, Left Hand
1940-10-11
Edison, the Man
1940-05-10
It All Came True
1940-04-06
The Shop Around the Corner
1940-01-12
Swanee River
1939-12-29
Ninotchka
1939-11-23
Bridal Suite
1939-05-26
Three Smart Girls Grow Up
1939-03-24
Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
1936-05-21
Four and a Half Musketeers
1935-10-01
Ball at the Savoy
1935-04-11
Everything for the Company
1935-04-04
Peter
1934-12-19
Salto in die Seligkeit
1934-10-31
C'était un musicien
1934-05-11
Wie d'Warret würkt
1933-12-01
...und wer küßt mich?
1933-03-07
The Lucky Top Hat
1932-08-18
Holzapfel Knows Everything
1932-02-05
Visul lui Tanase
1932-01-01
The Office Manager
1931-11-19
Excursion into Life
1931-09-30
Fanfare about love
1931-09-03
No More Love
1931-07-26
Terror of the Garrison
1931-04-23
True Jacob
1931-03-16
Private Secretary
1931-01-16
Eine Freundin so goldig wie Du
1930-12-15
Three Days in the Guardhouse
1930-11-10
Old Song
1930-10-15
The Three from the Filling Station
1930-09-15
The Tender Relatives
1930-08-28
There is a woman who will never forget you
1930-03-27
Liebe im Kuhstall
1928-10-19
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