Anton Karas (July 7, 1906 – January 10, 1985) was a Viennese zither

Zither

The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...

 player, best known for his soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 to Carol Reed

Carol Reed

Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...

's The Third Man

The Third Man

The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score...

.

Early life

Born in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, of Hungarian and Czech origin, one of five children of a factory worker, Anton Karas was already keen on music as a child. He desired to become a band leader, which due to the family's financial situation was impossible. However, he was allowed to learn to play an instrument, as were his two brothers and two sisters. He later reported that his first zither was one he found in his grandmother's attic, at the age of 12.

As ordered by his father, he started an apprenticeship as a tool and die maker

Tool and die maker

Tool and die makers are workers in the manufacturing industry who make jigs, fixtures, dies, molds, machine tools, cutting tools , gauges, and other tools used in manufacturing processes...

 at the age of 14, while also taking music evening courses at a private institution. He successfully finished his apprenticeship in 1924 and worked in a car factory until being unemployed in January 1925. As he had already begun to study at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna in 1924, he subsequently earned his living as an entertainer in a Heuriger (a wine bar, typically with a garden, usually selling the year's new wine) and soon found himself earning more income than his father. He continued his studies until 1928.

Career

In 1930, he was married, followed by the birth of his daughter three months later. From 1939–1945 he was with German Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 anti-aircraft warfare

Anti-aircraft warfare

NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...

, temporarily in Russia, where he also took a zither along. He lost more than one instrument due to war action, but always managed somehow to find another one.

The Third Man

In 1948, director Carol Reed

Carol Reed

Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...

 was preparing to shoot The Third Man in Vienna and decided to have Karas playing the zither for the soundtrack. Reluctant Karas was invited to London and lived with Reed while composing the score, and at that time was drawing a considerable salary of 30 GBP a week, plus 20 in pocket money, with expenses. The soundtrack was created in Korda's London Films

London Films

London Films is a British film production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda originally based at London Film Studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. The company's productions included The Private Life of Henry VIII , Things to Come , Rembrandt , The Four Feathers , The Thief of Bagdad ...

 studios, and Karas, who was homesick most of the time, worked up to 14 hours a day for twelve weeks: He had not been a composer before, but a great performer, and added improvisations to his repertoire. Later, Karas would mention that Reed almost "kept him like a slave" when he wanted to go back to Vienna more than once.

The film, not least due to its music, turned into a gigantic success which changed Karas' life. As a result, he toured all over the world and performed for many celebrities, among them members of the British Royal family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...

 (Princess Margaret had invited him to London's fashionable Empress Club, where he played twice a week during his stay at London), Queen Juliana of the Netherlands

Juliana of the Netherlands

Juliana was the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1948 and 1980. She was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry...

, members of the Swedish royal family, and Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

).
By the end of 1949, a half million copies of "The Harry Lime Theme

The Third Man Theme

"The Third Man Theme" is an instrumental written and performed by Anton Karas for the soundtrack to the film The Third Man ....

" had been sold, an unprecedented amount for the time. The success of the score also caused a surge in zither sales.

In Austria, the film opened on March 10, 1950, in Vienna's Apollo Kino, and it initially offended some Viennese inhabitants, as it focused on the disgrace of the destroyed city. Vienna's newspaper critics hated the film, except for its music. When Karas returned to Austria after his first world tour in July 1950, he was welcomed by chancellor Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party and the first Federal Chancellor after World War II...

 and other members of the government. Most importantly, the public liked the film. In Brigittenau

Brigittenau

Brigittenau is the 20th District of Vienna . It is located north of the central districts, north of Leopoldstadt on the same island area between the Danube and the Danube Canal...

, where Karas was born, people queued for tickets which were sold out eight days in advance.

Karas, however, disliked all of the glamour: "I never was a star, and never felt like one. It is because of that film that I was pushed from one place to the other… My only desire was to be back home again." he stated later. However, he went on tour again in 1951, travelling to Montreal and Las Vegas, followed by a number of other tours, including Japan in 1962, 1969 and 1972, where he performed for emperor Hirohito

Hirohito

, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...

.

In 1954, he opened his own Heuriger which immediately was fashionable among Hollywood celebrities like Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

, Gina Lollobrigida

Gina Lollobrigida

Gina Lollobrigida is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptress. She was one of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was also an iconic sex symbol of the 1950s. Today, she remains an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the...

, Curd Jürgens

Curd Jürgens

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...

, Hans Moser

Hans Moser

Hans Moser may refer to:*Hans Moser , Austrian actor*Hans Moser , German movie director*Hans Moser , Swiss Olympic rider*Hans Joachim Moser , German composer and musicologist...

, Paul Hörbiger

Paul Hörbiger

Paul Hörbiger was an Austrian theatre and film actor.-Life and work:Paul Hörbiger was born in Budapest, the son of Hans Hörbiger, an engineer who wrote Welteislehre on glacial cosmology, and elder brother of actor Attila Hörbiger. In 1902 the family returned to Vienna, while Paul attended the...

, Marika Röck and Johannes Heesters

Johannes Heesters

Johan Marius Nicolaas "Johannes" Heesters is a Dutch actor, singer and entertainer with a -year career, almost exclusively in the German-speaking world. In Germany and Austria, Heesters is mainly known for his acting career...

; therefore becoming a tourist attraction. However, he was still not satisfied, as he would have preferred to perform for locals who would understand him, his language and music. Because of this, he retired and retreated from the limelight in 1966, explaining "I'm not a tourist guy, and what I did there hadn't hardly anything to do with 'Vienna Heuriger'".

External links

• Anton Karas page by his Grandson (english version)
• Karas with celebrities in his "Heurige"
• [ Biography] at Allmusic
• In Search of the Third Man at Amazon.com
  Amazon.com
  Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
  
  
• Karas biography by Peter Payer from historical research, sponsored by the city of Vienna in 2005 (15 pages, in German).