Oskar Leopold Karlweis (often credited Oscar Karlweis; 10 July 1894 – 24 January 1956) was an Austrian-American stage and film actor, active internationally in both the silent as well as the sound era.
Career Born in Hinterbrühl, Austria-Hungary, he was the son of playwright Carl Karlweis and younger brother of the writer . Karlweis abandoned his law studies for the stage, first for eight years at Vienna's Stadttheater. After service in World War I, he was active with Max Reinhardt's Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, followed by engagements at various theaters in Munich and Vienna, and then to the Berlin stage where he had a popular following playing singing and dancing roles, including as Prinz Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus. His general manner was humorous, charming, naive, and cheerful.Life Magazine, 10 April 1944, p. 49
Singing with Bernard Etté und sein Orchester, he recorded the song "Sonny Boy" which was released on the Kristal label in 1929.Cover.Info - Song Sonny Boy – Bernard Etté & sein Orchester • Oskar KarlweisGrammophonics - 78Upm channel, Oct 16, 2021 - Bernhard Ette & Oskar Karlweis - Sonny Boy
In Berlin between 1930 and 1933 he worked as a recording artist and acted in more than a dozen German light comedy and musical films, most famously as one of Lilian Harvey's suitors in the hugely successful operetta film The Three from the Filling Station.
With Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Karlweis, who was Jewish, returned to the Austrian stage; but with the Nazi Anschluss in 1938 he was again forced to flee, first to Switzerland and then Paris where, at both locations, he took to the stage with fellow Austrian law school dropout, writer/director, and cabaret performer Karl Farkas. When German forces took Paris in 1940, Karlweis, along with his friend Austrian writer Friedrich Torberg, fled via Spain to Portugal, whence they made their way to New York.
Not knowing English, Karlweis was at first limited to acting in German emmigré productions, but he soon got his English legs and appeared in eight Broadway shows in the early 1940s,Internet Broadway Database, ibdb.com including the title role in Franz Werfel's long-running "Jacobowsky and the Colonel," garnering outstanding reviews.Life Magazine, 10 April 1944, p. 49
In the early 1950s Karlweis played supporting roles in TV productions and in several Hollywood and European films.Internet Movie Database He died in 1956 of a heart attack in New York, and is interred at the Matzleinsdorf Protestant Cemetery in Vienna.
Personal life In 1946, Karlweis married theatrical and film producer Ninon Tallon, the niece of three-time prime minister of France Édouard Herriot.Time Magazine, 29 April 1946. She continued to use his surname professionally until after his death.
Selected filmography The Bohemian Dancer (1926) Give Me Life (1928) Love in the Cowshed (1928), as Wedelski, Oberleutnant a.D. Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1930), as Nicky Mahler A Tango for You (1930), as Flooch The Three from the Filling Station (1930), as Kurt Dolly Gets Ahead (1930), as Fred Halton The Firm Gets Married (1931), as Solly Friedländer The Forester's Daughter (1931), as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Der Tanzhusar (1931), as Turi Weidinger Mamsell Nitouche (1931), as Célestin The Men Around Lucy (1931), as Robert The Concert (1931), as Doctor Jura The Naked Truth (1932) Spell of the Looking Glass (1932), as Menzel Three on a Honeymoon (1932), as Heinz Schaller The Gentleman from Maxim's (1933), as Werner Radke No Day Without You (1933), as Leo Today Is the Day (1933), as Peter Schlemm Voices of Spring (1933), as Franz Waldmüller Last Love (1935), as Teddy Langhammer Everything for the Company (1935), as Otto Sonndorfer St. Benny the Dip (1951), as Mr. Kovacs 5 Fingers (1952), as Moyzisch Anything Can Happen (1952), as Uncle Besso Tonight We Sing (1953), as Benjamin Golder The Juggler (1953), as Willy Schmidt Dutch Girl (1953), as Professor Schmidtchen Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), as Lotzi
Bibliography Palmer, Jean Michel. Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration in Europe And America. Verso, 2006. Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Psychology Press, 2003. Weniger, Kay: 'Es wird im Leben dir mehr genommen als gegeben ...' Lexikon der aus Deutschland und Österreich emigrierten Filmschaffenden 1933 bis 1945: Eine Gesamtübersicht (Hamburg: ACABUS Verlag, 2011). , 9783862821426
References
External links
Oskar Karlweis at Virtual History