EMIL JANNINGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1939, Page 5

EMIL JANNINGS

LIFE AS FILM ACTOR

Celebrating 25 years of film activity, Emil .Tannings, probably the finest character actor the screen has known, tells the story—in some slight reminiscences he is relating for a German film journal—of how he “broke into" the film business early in 1914. On the threshold of what promised to be a fine stage career in Berlin circumstances combined to make Tannings transfer his talents and genius to the film.

Born in Switzerland of German parents, Jannings found his way into the German theatre at the early age ol 17, after a year of hard seafaring on a sailing vessel. A year later, in 1901, he began to play leading roles in a company of strolling players. Twelve Sturm and Drang years followed: Jannings acted in every kind of theatre in the German provinces. In 1913 Max Reinhardt gave Jannings a five-year contract at the Deutches Theatre of Berlin, then at the height of its fame. .

But the fame was greater than the salary. Jannings then relates how the film enticed him away from the theatre. His first film role was obtained through the offices of a waiter in the famous “Cafe des Westens” —where Rupert Brooke wrote his “Grantchester” poem. Jannings was horrified at his first appearance on the screen, but he persevered and threw himself into the work. But the war kept the film business from advancing, and it was not until 1919 that Jannings made his name when he played Louis XIV in “Madame du Barry” with Pola Negri. Titled "Passion,” the “du Barry" film drew Hollywood’s attention to Jannings, and its world success established him as a star.

Between 1925 and 1929 Jannings was in Hollywood, where he began with "The Way of All Flesh" and ended with “The Patriot.” After his first talkie film, “The Blue Angel,” which discovered for the world the glamorous Marlene Dietrict, was released in 1930. Jannings withdrew from films for four years.