Stroheim, Erich von

Stroheim, Erich von

 orig. Erich Oswald Stroheim

Erich von Stroheim in Foolish Wives, 1922.

(credit: Brown Brothers)

(born Sept. 22, 1885, Vienna, Austria—died May 12, 1957, near Paris, France) Austrian-U.S. film director and actor. He was the son of a Jewish hatmaker, and he immigrated to the U.S. after his military service. He arrived in Hollywood in 1914, where he worked for D.W. Griffith and performed his trademark role as a Prussian officer. His directorial debut, Blind Husbands (1919), was followed by The Devil's Passkey (1920) and Foolish Wives (1922). Greed (1924), his masterpiece, was a landmark in film realism; however, it was cut from 9 hours to 140 minutes—without his approval—before its release. It was followed by The Merry Widow (1925), The Wedding March (1928), and Queen Kelly (1928). His extravagance and demand for artistic control scuttled his directing career, and he returned to acting, notably in Grand Illusion (1937) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).