This dark, debonair, dashing and extremely distinguished Austrian actor was christened Adolf Wohlbrück in Vienna, the scion of a family of circus clowns. He broke away easily from generations of tradition as the circus life had no appeal whatsoever to Walbrook. Trained by the legendary director 'Max Reinhardt . He retired from films at the end of the 1950s, and in later years returned to the European stage and included television roles to his resume. He died in Germany in 1967 of a heart attack.
Walbrook, who was gay and classified under the Nuremberg Laws as "half-Jewish" (his mother was Jewish), settled in England and continued working as a film actor, making a speciality of playing continental Europeans.
After World War II he appeared on German stages but the German film business offered him very little.
His ashes were interred in the churchyard of St. Johns Church, Hampstead, London, as he had wished in his testament.
His The Red Shoes co-star Moira Shearer recalled Walbrook was a loner on set, often wearing dark glasses and eating alone.
His career was abruptly interrupted because of the political situation in Germany. Being gay and half-Jewish, he knew things would get worse for him under the Adolf Hitler regime and he left Germany in 1936--during the Olympic Games--for France, then to the US, where it was easier to make films. He later took up residence in England. There he found work in the film business using the name Anton Walbrook.
He took acting lessons at the school of Max Reinhardt and obtained a five-year contract at the "Deutsches Theater".
Walbrook was born in Vienna, Austria, as Adolf Wohlbrck. He was the son of Gisela Rosa (Cohn) and Adolf Ferdinand Bernhard Hermann Wohlbrck. He was descended from ten generations of actors, though his father broke with tradition and was a circus clown.
During a performance at the "Mnchenern Kleinen Komdie" he collapsed; four months later he died of a heart attack. He was buried in England. His mourners had flowers delivered to show their sympathy.
He is best remembered for his roles in several Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger films, particularly as Prussian Theo in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Svengali-like ballet impresario Lermontov in The Red Shoes . Other memorable performances included the sadistic husband in Thorold Dickinson s Gaslight .
He made his film debut in 1915 in Marionetten . He made another film in 1925, but his real film career came with the beginning of sound.
At the time he appeared in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp , Walbrook was also contracted to perform on stage in "Watch on the Rhine" in Londont West End. Only on matinee days did this cause real inconvenience, when he had to be quickly wished away from the film set by waiting car at exactly 12 noon. One evening during the plays interval, there was a knock on Walbrooks dressing-room door. There stood Winston Churchill , red-faced with anger. The Prime Minister proceeded to berate the actor for taking part in "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp": Whats this supposed to mean? I suppose you regard it as good propaganda for Britain? To which Walbrook replied, "No people in the world other than the English would have had the courage, in the midst of war, to tell the people such unvarnished truth".
Walbrook was a fervent anti-Nazi who immediately donated his 1000 fee to charity for his part in the movie 49th Parallel .
He was one of the few actors whose work actually improved with exile. His screen persona, like his English, was always perfectly poised and controlled (a consequence perhaps of the constant strain he felt hiding his homosexuality), with only a hint at the great sublimated energy that he seemed to hold taut just below his skin. In performance it only rarely broke loose, as it did during the "we are not your brothers" speech in 49th Parallel , or later in his role as Lermontov in The Red Shoes .
On the set of Oh... Rosalinda!! Walbrook--who had left Germany in the early 1930s--would not speak to either Anneliese Rothenberger (extremely temperamental) or Oskar Sima (playing Frosch, in the film a signally unfunny interpreter), both of whom he claimed had been Nazis.
His mastery of English was remarkable and enabled him to appear on the stage from 1939 onward, something few emigre actors accomplished. He always brought an English teacher--his English governess from childhood--to the set to help him with pronunciation.
