Veidt starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), also directed by Robert Wiene, The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924), in which he played Ivan the Terrible. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), as a disfigured young outcast servant whose face is cut into a permanent grin, provided the (visual) inspiration for the iconic Batman villain the Joker. Caligari (1920), a classic of German Expressionist cinema, with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover. One of his earliest performances was as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. There, he played a small part as a priest that got him his first rave review, the reviewer hoping that "God would keep Veidt from the films." or "God save him from the cinema!" Career įrom 1917 until his death, Veidt appeared in more than 100 films. Veidt returned to Berlin where he was readmitted to the Deutsches Theater.
Wenzel waxworks full#
In late 1916, he was re-examined by the Army and deemed unfit for service he was given a full discharge on 10 January 1917. While performing at the theatre, his relationship with Mannheim ended. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theatre so that he could entertain the troops. Intrigued, Veidt applied for the theatre as well. While recuperating, he received a letter from his girlfriend Lucie Mannheim, telling him that she had found work at the Front Theatre in Libau. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. In 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front as a non-commissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. His contract with the Deutsches Theater was renewed for a second season, but by this time World War I had begun, and on 28 December 1914, Veidt enlisted in the army. His mother attended almost every performance. During this time, he played bit parts as spear carriers and soldiers. He offered Veidt a contract as an extra for one season's work, from September 1913 to August 1914 with a pay of 50 marks a month. During Veidt's audition, Reinhardt looked out of the window the entire time. He took ten lessons from him before auditioning for Max Reinhardt, reciting Goethe's Faust. In the late summer of 1912 he met a theatre porter who introduced him to actor Albert Blumenreich, who agreed to give Veidt acting lessons for six marks. He loitered outside of the Deutsches Theater after every performance, waiting for the actors and hoping to be mistaken for one. With the money he raised from odd jobs and the allowance his mother gave him, Veidt began attending Berlin's many theatres. The play was badly received, and the audience was heard to mutter, "Too bad the others didn't do as well as Veidt." Veidt began to study all of the actors he could and wanted to pursue a career in acting, much to the disappointment of his father, who called actors 'gypsys' and 'outcasts'.
Ī new career path for Veidt opened up in 1911 during a school Christmas play in which he delivered a long prologue before the curtain rose. His hopes for a medical career were thwarted, though, when in 1912 he graduated without a diploma and ranked 13th out of 13 pupils and became discouraged over the amount of study necessary for him to qualify for medical school. Impressed by the surgeon's skill and kindness, Veidt vowed to "model my life on the man that saved my father's life" and he wished to become a surgeon. Knowing that the family could not afford to pay the lofty fee that accompanied the surgery, the doctor charged only what the family could comfortably pay. Two years after Karl's death, Veidt's father fell ill and required heart surgery. The family spent their summers in Potsdam. Veidt's only sibling, an older brother named Karl, died in 1900 of scarlet fever at the age of 9.
He was later confirmed in a ceremony at the Protestant Evangelical Church in Alt- Schöneberg, Berlin on 5 March 1908. His family was Lutheran, and Veidt was baptized on 26 March 1893. Veidt was nicknamed 'Connie' by his family and friends. He was almost fanatically conservative.” By contrast, Amalie was sensitive and nurturing. Veidt would later recall, “Like many fathers, he was affectionately autocratic in his home life, strict, idealistic. Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was born on 22 January 1893 in his parents' home at Tieckstraße 39 in Berlin to Amalie Marie (née Gohtz) and Philipp Heinrich Veidt, a former military man turned civil servant. Conrad Veidt with his mother Amalie, 1893
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