Ludwig Donath (6 March 1900 – 29 September 1967) was an Austrian actor. He appeared in many American films and television series after emigrating there in 1940, as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
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Early life and work
Born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Donath studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He began his professional stage career at the Volkstheater in 1919. A year later, he moved to Germany for an engagement at the Munich Kammerspiele, and subsequently became a prominent stage actor in Berlin. He made his film debut in the silent biopic Theodor Herzl (1921), playing Prince Eugene of Savoy.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Donath initially moved to Czechoslovakia, joining a theatre company in Ostrava, before returning to his native Vienna. He was a member of the repertory company of the Theater an der Wien until the Anschluss in 1938. He initially fled to Switzerland, appearing in the film Fusilier Wipf, before moving to the United States in 1940.
Career in the United States
Donath began his American film career with Lady from Chungking (1942) and went on to appear in dozens of films, including Gilda (1946), The Great Caruso (1951), My Pal Gus (1952), and Sirocco (1951). He initially adopted the Anglicized stage name 'Louis Donath', though he would revert to using his real name in 1944. During World War II, he often portrayed Nazi villains, including Adolf Hitler himself on three occasions.
Donath played the father of entertainer Al Jolson (Larry Parks) in the two biopics The Jolson Story (1946) and Jolson Sings Again (1949), although he was less than 15 years older than Parks as Jolson.
In the early 1950s during the Second Red Scare, Donath was blacklisted due to his leftist political sympathies. He moved from Hollywood to New York City, and mostly worked in television and on Broadway. He starred in Abie's Irish Rose and the musical She Loves Me. In 1966, he had a minor comeback with a prominent supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's Cold War thriller Torn Curtain, playing an eccentric East German rocket scientist.
Personal life
Donath married Jean Montrose in 1955.
Death
Donath died of leukemia on 20 September 1967, at the age of 67. His cremains are interred at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. At the time of his death, Donath had completed filming of the made-for-TV film To Die in Paris, which aired posthumously a year later.