From a family background of actors, Anton Walbrook entered German film
in the German serial Mater Dolorosa (1924). He established himself as
a matinee idol in the early talkies, starring in such Mittel-European
productions as the gender-bending comedy Viktor und Viktoria (1933)
and Maskerade (1934). He made two more significant films in Germany,
The Student of Prague (1935) and Jules Verne adaptation Michel Strogoff
(1935), before heading to RKO-Radio in Hollywood to feature in a remake
of Michael Strogoff (1937). Disillusioned by his American experience,
Walbrook emigrated to England in 1936 and was cast as Prince Albert
in his first British film, Herbert Wilcox’s
Victoria the Great (1937), a characterisation he repeated in Sixty Glorious
Years (1938). His British popularity was cemented by his elegantly chilling
portrayal of the murderous central character in Thorold
Dickinson’s version of Gaslight
(1940).
In the 1940s, Walbrook worked frequently with Michael
Powell and Emeric
Pressburger; playing the Hutterite leader in 49th
Parallel (1941) and affable German officer Theodor Krestchmer-Schuldorf
in The Life
and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). He became a British citizen in
1947. The following year gave rise to his greatest performance in a
Powell-Pressburger assignment, the role of obsessed ballet impresario
Boris Lermontov in The
Red Shoes (1948). One of his most captivating performances was in
Thorold Dickinson's stylish gothic
chiller Queen of
Spades (1949), as a man desperate to learn the secret to cards.
In the 1950s, Walbrook brilliantly played a brace of roles for director
Max Ophuls: the worldly-wise raconteur in La Ronde (1950) and the ageing,
foolhardy Ludwig I of Bavaria in Lola Montes (1955). Anton Walbrook's
final screen role was Major Esterhazy in I Accuse ( 1958).
