Francis Lederer

Known for ActingBorn 1899-11-05Died 2000-05-25Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Francis Lederer (November 6, 1899 – May 25, 2000) was a Czech-born film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States. His original name was František Lederer. Lederer's first American movies were Man of Two Worlds (1934), Romance in Manhattan (1934), with Ginger Rogers, The Gay Deception (1935), with Frances Dee, and One Rainy Afternoon (1936). He was cast as the lead with Katharine Hepburn in the 1935 film Break of Hearts, but the producers replaced him with Charles Boyer. It was Irving Thalberg's plan to make Lederer "the biggest star in Hollywood" but the death of Thalberg ended this possibility. Although he continued to play leads occasionally – notably when he was a playboy in Mitchell Leisen's Midnight with Claudette Colbert and John Barrymore in 1939 – in the late 1930s Lederer began to expand his character parts, even playing villains. Edward G. Robinson praised Lederer's performance as a German American Bundist in Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, and he earned plaudits for his portrayal of a fascist in The Man I Married (1940) with Joan Bennett. He also played Count Dracula for The Return of Dracula in 1958. Throughout his career, Lederer, who studied with Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City, continued to take stage acting seriously, and he performed often both in New York and elsewhere. He appeared in stage productions of Golden Boy (1937), Seventh Heaven (1939), No Time for Comedy (1939), in which he replaced Laurence Olivier, The Play's the Thing (1942), A Doll's House (1944), Arms and the Man (1950), The Sleeping Prince (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1958). Although he took a break from making films in 1941, in order to concentrate on his stage work, he returned to the silver screen in 1944, appearing in Voice in the Wind and The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and in films such as Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) and Million Dollar Weekend (1948). He took another break from Hollywood in 1950, after making Surrender (1950), and returned in 1956 with Lisbon and the light comedy The Ambassador's Daughter. His final film appearance was in Terror Is a Man in 1959. During the 1950s, he served as honorary mayor of Canoga Park. He would continue to make television appearances for the next 10 years in such shows as Sally, The Untouchables, Ben Casey, Blue Light, Mission: Impossible and That Girl. His final television appearance occurred in a 1971 episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery called "The Devil Is Not Mocked". In it, he reprised his role as Dracula from The Return of Dracula.Read more

Movies & web series

Dracula in the Movies

Dracula: A Cinematic Scrapbook

Her Majesty Love

The Fate of Renate Langen

Fundvogel

Refuge

Film Emigration from Nazi Germany

The emperor's detective

Meineid

Adventures in Vienna

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

Behind Closed Doors

Night Gallery

The Road to Dishonour

Die seltsame Nacht der Helga Wangen

Mission: Impossible

Romance in Manhattan

The Great Passion

The Other Eye

My American Wife

A Century of Science Fiction

Midnight

Pandora's Box

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

77 Sunset Strip

Blue Light

Atlantic

A Woman of Distinction

The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna

Susie Cleans Up

Lux Video Theatre

Kraft Suspense Theatre

The Philco Television Playhouse

Maracaibo

Lisbon

Puddin' Head

The Lone Wolf in Paris

The Madonna's Secret

Man of Two Worlds

That Girl

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Man I Married

The Diary of a Chambermaid

The Gay Deception

The Pursuit of Happiness

Robert Montgomery Presents

Ben Casey

Confessions of a Nazi Spy