Reinhold Schünzel

Reinhold Schünzel (1888 to 1954) was a German actor and director who worked in both Germany and the United States. Born in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg to a German father and a Jewish mother, he began acting in films in 1915 and directed his first film, Mary Magdalene, in 1918. He became one of the best-known silent film performers in Germany after the First World War, often playing villains or corrupt powerful men, and was influenced by Richard Oswald and Ernst Lubitsch. The Nazi regime gave him honorary Aryan status, which let him keep working for several years, but he left Germany in 1937 after official interference with his projects. In Hollywood he directed films at MGM including Rich Man, Poor Girl, Balalaika and New Wine, and he acted memorably as the Nazi conspirator Dr. Anderson in Notorious (1946). He became a United States citizen in 1943, returned to Germany in 1949 and died in Munich in 1954.