Max Schreck | |
|---|---|
 Schreck in 1916 | |
| Born | Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck (1879-09-06)6 September 1879 |
| Died | 20 February 1936(1936-02-20) (aged 56) |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1903–1936 |
| Spouse | |
Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck[1] (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936),[2][3][4] was a German actor, best known for his lead role as thevampireCount Orlok in the filmNosferatu (1922).
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(March 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Max Schreck was born inBerlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later, his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district ofTeltow. He was baptized atSt. Matthew's Church in Berlin.[5]
Schreck's father did not approve of his son's ever-growing enthusiasm for theatre. His mother provided the boy with money, which he secretly used for acting lessons, although only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he travelled briefly across the country with poet and dramatistDemetrius Schrutz.
Schreck had engagements inMulhouse,Meseritz,Speyer,Rudolstadt,Erfurt andWeissenfels, and his first extended stay at The Gera Theatre. Greater engagements followed, especially in Frankfurt am Main. From there, he went toBerlin forMax Reinhardt and theMunich Kammerspiele forOtto Falckenberg.
Schreck received his training at the Berliner Staatstheater (State Theatre ofBerlin), completing it in 1902.[3] He made his stage début inMeseritz andSpeyer, and then toured Germany for two years, appearing at theatres inZittau,Erfurt,Bremen,[3]Lucerne,[3]Gera,[3] andFrankfurt am Main.[3] Schreck then joinedMax Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin.[6] Many members of Reinhardt's troupe went on to make significant contributions to the German film industry.[6]
Schreck did not join the Nazi Party and “did not engage in party politics” (direct quote from the most reliable modern biographical sources).In January 1933 (the very month Hitler became Chancellor), he performed in Die Pfeffermühle (“The Peppermill”), an openly anti-fascist cabaret run by Erika Mann (Thomas Mann’s daughter) and other left-leaning artists in Munich. The show was shut down by the new Nazi authorities after only two months.
His pre-1933 circle included Bertolt Brecht, Max Reinhardt, and other progressive or Jewish theater figures — exactly the people the Nazis drove into exile or worse.After 1933 his film roles shrank dramatically (likely because of his politics and/or “difficult” personality), but he kept working on stage in Munich until the night before he died.
For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at theMunich Kammerspiele,[6] including a role in theexpressionist production ofBertolt Brecht's début,Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb.[7] During this time, he also worked on his first filmThe Mayor of Zalamea, adapted from a six-act play, forDecla Bioscop.[6]
In 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for its first and only production,Nosferatu (1922), an unlicenced adaptation ofBram Stoker's novelDracula. The company declared itselfbankrupt after the film was released to avoid payingcopyright infringement costs to the author's widow,Florence Stoker.[6] Schreck portrayedCount Orlok, a character analogous toCount Dracula.[6]
While still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler)slapstick, "surreal comedy" written byBertolt Brecht with cabaret and stage actorsKarl Valentin,Liesl Karlstadt,Erwin Faber, andBlandine Ebinger, entitledMysterien eines Friseursalons (Mysteries of a Barbershop, 1923), directed byErich Engel.[8] Schreck appeared as a blind man in the filmThe Street (also 1923).[2][6]
Schreck's second collaboration withNosferatu directorF. W. Murnau was the comedyDie Finanzen des Grossherzogs (The Grand Duke's Finances, 1924).[6] Even Murnau did not hesitate to declare his contempt for the picture.[6] In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films, his career surviving the advent of sound until 1936, when he died fromheart failure.[9]
Schreck was married to actressFanny Normann,[6] who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck.
One of Schreck's contemporaries recalled that he was a loner with an unusual sense of humour and skill in playing grotesque characters. He also reported that he lived in "a remote and incorporeal world" and that he often spent time walking through forests.[9]
There were rumours at the time ofNosferatu and for many years afterwards that Schreck did not actually exist and was a pseudonym for the well-known actorAlfred Abel.[10]
Schreck did not engage in party politics, but starred in theanti-fascist cabaretDie Pfeffermühle byErika Mann. It began playing in January 1933 and was shut down by the newly formed Nazi government, two months later.[11]
On 19 February 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the playDon Carlos, standing in forWill Dohm. That evening, he felt unwell, and the doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning of a heart attack.[12] Hisobituary especially praised his lead role performance inMolière's playThe Miser.[12] He was buried on 14 March 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf inBrandenburg.[2]
The person and performance of Max Schreck inNosferatu was fictionalised by actorWillem Dafoe inE. Elias Merhige'sShadow of the Vampire.[9] In a secret history,Shadow posits that Schreck was a realvampire.[13] Dafoe was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Schreck.[14]
ScriptwriterDaniel Waters created the character Max Shreck (portrayed byChristopher Walken) for theTim Burton filmBatman Returns and compared him to the character Max Schreck played inNosferatu.[15]Variety claimed the name was anin-joke.[16]
The 2000 filmShadow of the Vampire, starring John Malkovich as Murnau, was a darkly comic fantasy in which it was revealed that "Shreck" was an actual vampire (played by Willem Dafoe) that the director had brought in to lend his authenticity to the role. It was rooted in a film-scholar in-joke that went back decades.
The script gave the writer (Daniel Waters) license to create his own villain in the form of Christopher Walken's nefarious Max Shreck, named after Max Schreck, the star of F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922).
Max Shreck, a character named, as an in-joke, after the German actor who starred as the screen's first Dracula in F.W. Murnau's 1922 "Nosferatu."
