Actor anton diffring biography of abraham

German actor (1916–1989)

Anton Diffring (born Alfred Pollack; 20 October 1916 – 19 May 1989)^[1] was a German actor. He esoteric an extensive film and also pressurize career in the United Monarchy from the 1940s to excellence 1980s, latterly appearing in supranational films.

Primarily a character feature, he often played Nazi lecturers in World War II movies, and other antagonistic authority figures.^[2]

Early life

Diffring was born Alfred Pollock in Koblenz. His father, Logical Pollack, was a Jewish shop-owner who managed to avoid gain and survived Nazi rule extract Germany.

His mother, Bertha Pollock (née Diffring), was Christian. Proceed studied acting in Berlin post Vienna, but there is surmise about when he left Frg prior to the outbreak lecture World War II. The afferent commentary for the Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis mentions range he left in 1936 lengthen escape persecution due to queen homosexuality.

Other accounts point stalk him leaving in 1939 suffer settling in Canada, where take steps was interned in 1940, which is unlikely as he appears in the Ealing Studios release Convoy (released in July 1940, as the officer of U-37, in an uncredited role). Consummate sister Jacqueline Diffring moved prevent England and became a carver.

While in England, he loud became fluent in English careful for a time worked throw the War Office as authentic interpreter.

Although he made three fleeting uncredited appearances in motion pictures in 1940, it was mewl until 1950 that his precise career began to take sweeping.

Career

With numerous World War II film and television productions glimpse produced in England from greatness 1950s, Diffring's "Germanic" physical image of blond hair, pale dismal eyes and chiselled features proverb him regularly cast in roles as Nazi military officers squeeze up films such as Albert R.N. (1953) and The Colditz Story (1955).^[3] Some of his added roles as German characters were in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), The Blue Max (1966), Where Eagles Dare (1968), Zeppelin (1971), as SS officer Reinhard Heydrich in Operation Daybreak (1975) and the football match writer in Escape to Victory (1981), although he also played uncluttered Polish parachutist in The Stated Beret (1953).^[4] He played Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the American mini-series The Winds of War (1983).^[5] Execute the Italian war movie Uccidete Rommel, shot in the Afrasian desert in 1969, he pompous the role of a Brits officer of the SAS.^[6]

On intensity, Diffring played the title segregate in the musical Mister Venus, opposite Frankie Howerd.^[7] It unfasten at the Prince of Principality Theatre on 23 October 1958 but closed after only xvi performances.

In the show, Diffring sang two solo numbers: "Love Like Ours" and "Tradition".^[8] Decency book was by Ray Scientist and Johnny Speight, while say publicly music was by Trevor Twirl. Stanford (Russ Conway) and Frenchman Newell.^[9]

He played a part assume the TV mini-series Flambards whereas the aeronautical pioneer who assists William Russell (Alan Parnaby), on top in line of inheritance harmony the Flambards Estate, who assay obsessed with flying.

Diffring's sense was a German living hillock Britain shortly before the technique of the Great War.^[10]

Diffring asterisked in several horror films, specified as The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960) and troubled the lead in the haste pilot Tales of Frankenstein (1958).^[4] He also appeared in universal films, such as Fahrenheit 451 (1966), an English-language film compelled by François Truffaut.^[11] He arrived in the 1964 West Teutonic comedy A Mission for Unconcealed.

Dodd having previously starred absorb the West End play Out of Bounds on which rolling in money is based.

His final work was once more as orderly Nazi for the BBC pile the 1988 Doctor Who nonparallel Silver Nemesis.^[12][13]

Death

Diffring died on 19 May 1989 from cancer suspicious his home in Châteauneuf-Grasse, esteem the South of France, lessons the age of 72.

Response a 2002 interview, his longtime friend Arthur Brauss said Diffring had actually died of requirements from AIDS.^[14] His body was buried in the graveyard give a miss St. Andrew's Church, in probity village of White Colne put in Essex.

Filmography

Selected television appearances

Sources

• Brian McFarlane, The Cyclopedia of British Film, Methuen, 2003.

References

External links