Tonio Selwart
Encyclopedia
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n actor and stage performer.
Biography
Named Antonio Franz Theus Selmair-Selwart at birth, Tonio Selwart was born in WartenbergWartenberg, Bavaria
Wartenberg is a municipality in the district of Erding in Bavaria in Germany....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and raised in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. After studying medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
like his father (a well known surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
), he decided instead to become an actor, following a life-long interest in theater. Selwart thereafter studied acting and appeared in many plays throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He appeared in a variety of stage productions, including classics such as Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and modern popular works like Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
's romantic dream play, The Prince of Homburg
The Prince of Homburg (play)
The Prince of Homburg is a play by Heinrich von Kleist written in 1809-10, but not performed until 1821, after the author's death. A performance during his lifetime was not possible because Princess Marianne of Prussia , by birth a member of the Hesse-Homburg family, to whom Kleist had given sight...
, in which he played the title role.
After further honing his skills as a director, Selwart decided to try his luck in the United States of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. His luck panned out in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he landed the lead part in Lawrence Langner
Lawrence Langner
Lawrence Langner the Great was a playwright, author, and producer.Born near Swansea, South Wales and working most of his life in the United States, he started his career as one of the founders of the Washington Square Players troupe in 1914.In 1919 he founded the Theatre Guild, where he supervised...
's and Armina Marshall's play The Pursuit of Happiness for the Theatre Guild in 1930. The comedy proved to be his first big success in America, running from 1933 to 1934, and made him, as he often put it, "a matinee idol for a whole year!" Riding high on this success, Selwart decided to emigrate permanently and became an American citizen.
Fittingly enough, Selwart was himself an officer and fought in World War I on the Austro-Hungarian side, as a lieutenant in the cavalry.
He derived his nickname "Tonio" from his first name and from his family background – his parents were Austrian, and he had an Italian grandmother. He was familiar with the novella Tonio Kröger
Tonio Kröger
Tonio Kröger is a novella by Thomas Mann, written early in 1901, when he was 25. It was first published in 1903.-Plot summary:The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and an Italian artist, Tonio inherited...
, which dealt with a half-German, half-Italian young artist in pre-WWI Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and was written by Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
(a friend of his) and had a tape recording of the story being read by Mann himself.
Selwart was popular, and had many friends in the film and theater world. His wife, Claire Volkhart, a painter and sculptor, died in Germany in 1935 and his longtime companion, Ilse Jennings, a Paris-born Spanish artist, died in 1967.
He died at the age of 106 in New York City.
Film
Selwart made a total of 21 film appearances. His debut was in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1943), as a Nazi Gestapo chief. In the 1954 feature The Barefoot ContessaThe Barefoot Contessa
The Barefoot Contessa is a 1954 film about the life and loves of fictional Spanish sex symbol Maria Vargas. It was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and stars Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner and Edmond O'Brien....
he appeared as the Pretender King, with Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
and Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
. His last film appearance, The Other Side of the Wind
The Other Side of the Wind
The Other Side of the Wind is an unfinished film directed by Orson Welles, shot between 1969 and 1976, and starring John Huston, Bob Random, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg and Oja Kodar.-Summary:...
(1972) for 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...
, is still unreleased. The film was reportedly left largely unedited when Welles died in 1985; Selwart as well as other cast and crew members had to be dismissed because of lack of funds. Even after the film was considered finished, the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian producers refused to release it. According to Welles in a letter to Selwart, it contains an excellent performance by this actor as the Baron. Selwart was much concerned that this "swan song" of his had never been released and even in 1992, at the age of 95, regretted that he would probably never see it. This was not only because of his age but because of his gradual loss of sight.
Other familiar titles are: Anzio
Anzio (film)
Anzio, also known as Lo Sbarco di Anzio or The Battle for Anzio, is a 1968 war film about Operation Shingle, the 1944 Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of Anzio in World War II...
by Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...
, in 1968, his last Hollywood film appearance; The North Star
The North Star (1943 film)
The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
(1943), directed by Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...
with a script by playwright Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
, with Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
; Edge of Darkness (1943), also by Milestone, his first film role, where he played his first film German soldier role, opposite Judith Anderson
Judith Anderson
Dame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE was an Australian-born American-based actress of stage, film and television. She won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.-Early life:...
; Wilson
Wilson (film)
Wilson is a 1944 biographical film in Technicolor about President Woodrow Wilson. It stars Charles Coburn, Alexander Knox, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke.The movie was written by Lamar Trotti and directed by Henry King...
(1944), where he played the German ambassador to Washington, D.C. during World War I, Count von Bernstorff; The Cross of Lorraine
The Cross of Lorraine
The Cross of Lorraine is a 1943 war film about French prisoners of war held by the Germans in World War II. It stars Jean-Pierre Aumont and Gene Kelly and was adapted from Hans Habe's novel A Thousand Shall Fall.-Cast:*Jean-Pierre Aumont as Paul...
(1943), with Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
; The Hitler Gang, playing the Nazi official Alfred Rosenberg and Romanoff and Juliet
Romanoff and Juliet (film)
Romanoff and Juliet is a 1961 feature film adaptation of the play of the same name released by Universal Pictures. Peter Ustinov wrote the screenplay, directed, and starred in the film...
(1961), written, directed and starring Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
, and an Italian-American adaptation of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's Iliad, Helen of Troy
Helen of Troy (film)
Helen of Troy is a 1956 Warner Bros. epic film, based on Homer's Iliad. It was directed by Robert Wise, from a screenplay by Hugh Gray and John Twist, adapted by Hugh Gray and N. Richard Nash...
(1956), directed by Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
, with Rossanna Podesta, Jacques Sernas, and in two featured roles, Tonio Selwart playing opposite a then almost unknown Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
, in 1956.
While he played only supporting roles in English-language cinema, Selwart starred in Italian and French films, notably in Lupo della Frontiere (Wolf of the Frontier, 1951), during the 1950s; he never appeared in a German film. He also made a brief speaking part appearance in Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
's Italian film Senso in 1954, at the beginning opera house scene, as an Austrian officer. He spoke fluent Italian, English and French, which helped him with roles in several countries. Starting from the late 1940s until the 1950s and 1960s, he also appeared on American television, making guest appearances in drama programs, most notably in The Fifth Column for Buick Electra Playhouse/CBS in 1960, playing an almost-deaf Nazi officer in a group of fifth columnists operating behind the lines in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in the 1930s (the program was adapted from a story by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and directed by John Frankenheimer
John Frankenheimer
John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...
).
Stage
Selwart appeared on stage around the country (including Broadway) and in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. His performances included: The Pursuit of Happiness (touring with it across the U.S. and England), Candle in the Wind by Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
with Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
(where he played his first German Nazi officer role, a type of character he came to specialize in), The Laughing Woman with Helen Menken
Helen Menken
Helen Menken was an American actress, born Helen Meinken to a German-French father, Frederick Meinken, and an Irish-born mother, Mary Madden....
, Autumn Crocus, Seeds in the Wind, Liliom by Ferenc Molnár (in which Selwart played the title role), and The Hidden River in 1957, among many others.
Selwart's last American stage appearances were with the Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...
in the 1964 tour of Brecht on Brecht and in the 1965 Carnegie Hall performance of Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
). He studied at the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
in New York and with Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner. His acting technique has been used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, and Robert Stack. Constantin Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student...
in California. Selwart had referred to Chekov as "My best teacher in America." As a member of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory he appeared in Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
, Alice in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
, and Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
's Spring's Awakening—a tragedy about adolescence which he also directed. Writer and poet May Sarton
May Sarton
May Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton , an American poet, novelist, and memoirist.-Biography:...
appeared in this production—one of her earliest stage roles.
Reference note
Most of the information given here comes from Gretchen Berg, a journalist who interviewed Mr. Selwart in his home in 1992, in New York. She kept in touch with him until 1999, three years before his death. She had actually met him almost thirty years earlier, in 1963, when she was 20 and he was 67 at the Hotel St. Moritz with her father, film critic and historian Herman G. Weinberg and their mutual friend, Fritz LangFritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
. Out of this encounter she fashioned a two-part article, "La Nuit Viennoise," published in Cahiers du Cinema, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, 1965–1966, in which she wrote about that evening, mentioning Selwart as having been a part of the festivities. She photographed Mr. Selwart in 1998 and 1999 as well, in his apartment in New York.
In 1995, now legally blind, Selwart was interviewed by William F. Powers for his book, Alive and Well: The Emergence of the Active Nonagenarian (Rutledge Books, 1996). In the interview, Selwart reflected: "If I died today, I could say only that I had lived a very beautiful and charmed life. Even when it looked at times like something bad had happened, it soon turned back again to something positive. The loss of my eyesight, although difficult, did not make me bitter. I figured that at my age I have to expect something and remembered all those poor people who suffer from cancer and are in terrible pain. I say to myself that I may have trouble seeing, but I don't suffer any physical, mental, or emotional pain."