Albert Bassermann

Albert Bassermann (7 September 1867 – 15 May 1952) was a German stage and screen actor. He was considered to be one of the greatest German-speaking actors of his generation and received the famous Iffland-Ring. Bassermann was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Foreign Correspondent. He was married to Elsa Schiff with whom he frequently performed.

Life and career

Bassermann began his acting career in 1887 in Mannheim, his birthplace, after he began to study chemistry at the Technical University of Karlsruhe in 1884/85. He was an actor at the Meiningen Court Theatre for 4 years. He then moved to Berlin. From 1899, he worked for Otto Brahm. He began work at the Deutsches Theater Berlin from 1904, the same year that his future wife, actress Elsa Schiff, moved to Berlin to work at that same theater. In 1909, the year after they married, he started working at the Lessing Theatre, though he also continued at the Deutsches Theater, working there with Max Reinhardt from 1909 to 1915. Roles included Othello in 1910, Faust Part II with Friedrich Kayssler in 1911, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and August Strindberg's The Storm with Gertrud Eysoldt in 1913.

Bassermann was among the first German theatre actors who worked in film. In 1913, he played the main role of the lawyer in Max Mack's Der Andere (The Other), after the play by Paul Lindau. In 1915, he appeared in Egmont (play) with :de:Victor Barnowsky at the :de:Deutsches Künstlertheater. He also worked with German silent film directors Richard Oswald, Ernst Lubitsch, Leopold Jessner and Lupu Pick. In 1928 he appeared in the first staging of Carl Zuckmayer's Katharina Knie, and in November that year in Herr Lambertier by Verneuil In 1933, Bassermann left Germany and lived in Switzerland, then moved to the United States in 1938.

Annija Simsone, who played opposite Bassermann in the Neue Wiener Buehne Theater in the 1920s, wrote the following in her autobiography: "During the Hitler era, Bassermann did not perform in Germany, though Adolf Hitler personally held him in high regard; Elsa was Jewish. Bassermann was told that if he wanted to continue to perform in Germany, he would have to get divorced. He did not get divorced, but Elsa and he went to Switzerland instead." He is buried in Mannheim.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1913 Der Andere Dr. Hallers The Other Der König Provinzschauspieler Der letzte Tag Professor Osterode 1914 Urteil des Arztes Dr. Erwin Hofmüller 1917 Du sollst keine anderen Götter haben Der eiserne Wille Hausierer David Herr und Diener 1918 Father and Son The Zaarden Brothers Doctor Schotte Lorenzo Burghardt 1919 Eine schwache Stunde Das Werk seines Lebens Peter 1920 Die Duplizität der Ereignisse The Voice The Sons of Count Dossy The Count/The Thief's Son Masks Dolls of Death 1921 Der Frauenarzt Dr. Wolfgang Holländer The Nights of Cornelis Brouwer Cornelis Brouwer Burning Country The Last Witness Olaf Baggerson Die kleine Dagmar 1922 Frauenopfer Graf Women's Sacrifice The Loves of Pharaoh Sothis Lucrezia Borgia Pope Alexander VI 1923 The Man in the Iron Mask Cardinal Mazarin The Man with the Iron Mask Earth Spirit Dr. Schoen Christopher Columbus Columbus Old Heidelberg The Student Prince Abenteuer einer Nacht 1924 Helena Aisakos Helen of Troy1925 Letters Which Never Reached Him Konsul Werner Gerling The Director General Generaldirektor Herbert Heidenberg 1926 Professor Imhof 1929 Fräulein Else Dr. Alfred Thalhof Napoleon at Saint Helena Governor Hudson Lowe 1930 Alraune Privy Councillor ten Brinken Daughter of Evil Dreyfus Col. PicquartThe Dreyfus Case1931 1914 Count Bethmann Hollweg A Woman Branded Dr. Ringius Inquest Dr. Konrad Bienert Cadets General von Seddin Cadets 1932 The Golden Anchor Piquoiseau 1933 Ein gewisser Herr Gran Tschernikoff, Kunsthändler 1935 Last Love Thomas Bruck 1938 Heroes of the Marne Col. von Gelow 1940 Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet Dr. Robert Koch Foreign Correspondent Van Meer Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Knute Rockne, All American Father Julius Nieuwland A Dispatch from Reuters Franz Geller Escape Dr. Arthur Henning Moon Over Burma Basil Renner 1941 A Woman's Face Consul Magnus Barring The Great Awakening Ludwig van Beethoven The Shanghai Gesture Van Elst, The Commissioner 1942 Fly-by-Night Dr. Storm Invisible Agent Arnold Schmidt Desperate Journey Dr. Ludwig Mather The Moon and Sixpence Dr. Coutras Once Upon a Honeymoon Gen. Borelski Reunion in France General Hugo Schroeder 1943 Good Luck, Mr. Yates Dr. Carl Hesser Madame Curie Prof. Jean Perot 1944 Since You Went Away Dr. Sigmund Gottlieb Golden 1945 The Captain from Köpenick Wilhelm Voigt, a shoemaker I Was a Criminal Strange Holiday School Principal The Day After Tomorrow; uncredited Rhapsody in Blue Prof. Franck 1946 The Searching Wind Count von Stammer 1947 The Private Affairs of Bel Ami Jacques Rival Escape Me Never Prof. Heinrich 1948 The Red Shoes Sergei Ratov Final film role