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Emil Jannings

Imposing silent star who first gained prominence with Max Reinhardt's Berlin theater in the teens. Jannings appeared in several superior early German films, particularly those directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and was outstanding as the humiliated doorman in F.W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924). He moved to Hollywood in 1926 and won an Academy Award for Josef Von Sternberg's "The Last Command" (1928), but after the advent of sound his inadequate English forced a return to Germany. There he turned in his most famous performance, as Professor Rath in Von Sternberg's "The Blue Angel" (1930). In 1938 Jannings accepted Goebbels' invitation to head the Tobis Film Company, which produced Nazi propaganda features such as Veidt Harlan's "Der Herrscher" (1937) and Hans Steinhoff's "Ohm Kruger" (1941). The Allied authorities refused to allow Jannings to work after the war, though a subsequent inquiry into his fascist affiliations cleared him of any serious involvement with the Nazi regime.