Oscar Homolka

Oskar Homolka
Oskar Homolka
	Homolka in Ebb Tide (1937)
Born	Oskar Homolka; August 12, 1898; Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	January 27, 1978 (aged 79); Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926–1976
Spouses	; Grete Mosheim (m. 1928; div. 1937) ; Baroness Vally Hatvany (m. 1937; died 1938) ; Florence Meyer (m. 1939; div. 1948) ; Joan Tetzel (m. 1949; died 1977)
Children	2

Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain, and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for which he was in regular demand. By the age of 30, he had appeared in more than 400 plays; his film career covered at least 100 films and TV shows.^[1]

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in I Remember Mama (1948).

Career

After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War, Homolka attended the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, the city of his birth, and began his career on the Austrian stage. In 1924 he played Mortimer in the premiere of Brecht's play The Life of Edward II of England at the Munich Kammerspiele, and from 1925 in Berlin where he worked under Max Reinhardt.

Other stage plays in which Homolka performed during this period include: The first German performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, 1924, Anna Christie, 1924, Boubouroche [fr], 1925, Juarez and Maximilian, 1925–1926, Her Young Boyfriend, 1925, The Jewish Widow, 1925, Stir, 1925, Mérimée and Courteline, 1926, Periphery, 1926, Neidhardt von Gneisenau, 1926, Dorothea Angermann, 1926–1927, Der Revisor, 1926, Androcles and the Lion, 1926, Bonaparte, 1927, The Ringer and The Squeaker by Edgar Wallace, both 1927, Underworld, 1930, Today's Sensation, 1931, The Last Equipage, 1931, The Waterloo Bridge, 1931, Faust, 1932, Karl and Anna, Doctor's Dilemma, Pygmalion, Juno and the Paycock, and many Shakespearean plays including: A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1925, Troilus and Cressida, 1927, Richard III, King Lear, and Macbeth. After his arrival in London, he continued to star on stage, including with Flora Robson in the play Close Quarters.

His first films were Die Abenteuer eines Zehnmarkscheines (Uneasy Money, 1926), Hokuspokus (Hocuspocus, 1930), and Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Case, 1930), Zwischen Nacht und Morgen (Between Night and Dawn, 1931), Geheimdienst (Intelligence, 1931), Junge Liebe (Young Love, 1931), and Nachtkolonne (Night Column, 1932). According to Homolka's own account, he made at least thirty silent films in Germany and starred in the first talking picture ever made there.

After the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Homolka moved to Britain, where he starred in the films Rhodes of Africa, with Walter Huston (1936) and Everything Is Thunder, with Constance Bennett (1936). Later, he was one of the many Austrian and specifically Viennese actors and theatrical people who left Europe for the US.^[1]^[2]

In 1936, he appeared opposite Sylvia Sidney in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Sabotage. Although he often played villains such as Communist spies and Soviet-bloc military officers or scientists, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the crusty, beloved uncle in I Remember Mama (1948).

He also acted with Ingrid Bergman in Rage in Heaven, with Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, with Ronald Reagan in Prisoner of War and with Katharine Hepburn in The Madwoman of Chaillot. He returned to England in the mid-1960s, to play the Soviet KGB Colonel Stok in Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), opposite Michael Caine. His last film was the Blake Edwards romantic drama The Tamarind Seed in 1974.

In 1967 Homolka was awarded the Filmband in Gold of the Deutscher Filmpreis for outstanding contributions to German cinema.

His career in television included appearances in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957 and 1960, and a 1964 episode of Hazel. In 1973, he appeared in "Border Line", an episode of The Protectors, filmed in Austria.

Homolka was referenced in The Odd Couple. When Oscar Madison makes his desperate last call to find a date and his prospect does not recall him, Madison asks "How many Oscars do you know?" After a pregnant pause, Madison replies, "You know Oscar Homolka?"

Personal life

Homolka married four times:

His first wife was Grete Mosheim, a German actress. They married in Berlin on 28 June 1928 but divorced in 1937. She later married Howard Gould.
His second wife, Baroness Vally Hatvany (died 1938), was a Hungarian actress. They married in December 1937, but she died four months later.
In 1939, Homolka married socialite and photographer Florence Meyer (1911–1962), a daughter of The Washington Post owner Eugene Meyer. They had two sons, Vincent and Laurence, but divorced after nine years of marriage.
His last wife was actress Joan Tetzel, whom he married in 1949. The marriage lasted until Tetzel's death in 1977.

Death

Homolka made his home in Britain after 1966. He died of pneumonia in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on January 27, 1978, three months after the death of his fourth wife, actress Joan Tetzel. He was 79 years old.^[1] He and Tetzel are buried in Christ Church churchyard, Fairwarp, East Sussex, England. Their gravestone is notable for having a pair of theatrical masks carved into the surface.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1926	Adventures of a Ten Mark Note	Direktor Haniel	lost film
1927	Aftermath	Der Matrose
	Tragedy of the Street	Anton
	The Girl Without a Homeland	Plempe
	Regine, die Tragödie einer Frau	Robert, ihr Bruder
	The Holy Lie	Jack
	The Trial of Donald Westhof	Lessing
	Petronella – Das Geheimnis der Berge	Fridolin Bortis
1928	Prince or Clown	Zurube
	The Serfs	Gouverneur Fürst Kurganow
	The Prince of Rogues	Antmann
	The Green Alley	Doctor Horner
1930	Revolt in the Reformatory	Erzieher
	Masks	Breitkopf
	Hocuspocus	Grandt
	Dreyfus	Major Walsin-Esterhazy
1931	Road to Rio	Ricardo
	1914	Sazanow
	Between Night and Dawn	Anton
	In the Employ of the Secret Service	Lanskoi, generalmajor
1932	Night Convoy	André Carno
1932	Nights in Port Said	Winston Winkler
1933	Moral und Liebe	Robert Keßler
	Spies at Work	Blünzli (Agent B 18)
	Invisible Opponent	James Godfrey
1936	Rhodes of Africa	Paul Kruger
	Everything Is Thunder	Detective Schenck Götz
	Sabotage	Karl Anton Verloc
1937	Ebb Tide^[3]	Captain Jakob Therbecke
1940	Seven Sinners	Antro
	Comrade X	Commissar Vasiliev
	The Invisible Woman	Blackie Cole
1941	Rage in Heaven	Dr. Rameau
1941	Ball of Fire	Professor Gurkakoff
1943	Mission to Moscow	Maxim Litvinov
1943	Hostages	Lev Pressinger
1947	The Shop at Sly Corner	Desius Heiss
1948	I Remember Mama	Uncle Chris	nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1949	Anna Lucasta	Joe Lucasta
1950	The White Tower	Andreas
1951	Der schweigende Mund [de]	Dr. Herbert Hirth
1952	Top Secret	Zekov
1953	The House of the Arrow	Inspector Hanaud
1954	Prisoner of War	Colonel Biroshilov
1955	The Seven Year Itch	Dr. Brubaker
1956	War and Peace	Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov
1957	A Farewell to Arms	Dr. Emerich
1957	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Carl Kaminsky	Season 3 Episode 6: "Reward to Finder"
1958	The Key	Captain Van Dam
1958	Tempest	Savelic
1960	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Carpius	Season 5 Episode 16: "The Ikon of Elijah"
1960	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Jan Vander Klaue / Mr. A.J. Keyser	Season 5 Episode 29: "The Hero"
1961	Mr. Sardonicus	Krull
1962	Boys' Night Out	Doctor Prokosch
	Mooncussers	Urias Hawke
	The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm	The Duke
1964	The Long Ships	Krok
1965	Joy in the Morning	Stan Pulaski
1966	Funeral in Berlin	Colonel Stok
1967	The Happening	Sam
1967	Billion Dollar Brain	Colonel Stok
1968	Assignment to Kill	Inspector Ruff
1969	The Madwoman of Chaillot	The Commissar
1970	The Executioner	Racovsky
1970	Song of Norway	Engstrand
1974	The Tamarind Seed	General Golitsyn

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Oskar Homolka, Actor, Dies at 79; The Uncle in I Remember Mama". The New York Times. 29 January 1978. p. E-17. Retrieved 6 January 2015. Oskar Homolka, for decades one of the leading character actors of stage, theatre and television, with a range from somber terror to chortling affability, died Friday in Sussex, England. He was 79 years old.
^ Obituary Variety, February 1, 1978, p. 110.
^ "Advertisement: Discovery of the Year!". Screenland. Vol. XXXV, no. 5. September 1937. p. 95. Retrieved 7 August 2020. Oskar Homolka, Frances Farmer, Ray Milland and others of the cast of Paramount's Ebbtide in Technicolor use the new screen and stage make-up by Elizabeth Arden