William Dieterle

In 1921, William Dieterle married Charlotte Hagenbruch, an actress and later screenwriter. They were married for almost five decades at the time of Charlotte’s death in 1968.

He died on December 9, 1972, at the age of 79.

He was born Wilhelm Dieterle in Ludwigshafen, German Empire, on July 15, 1893, as the youngest of nine children to Jacob and Berthe (Doerr) Dieterle. The family lived in poverty and he was forced to find work as a teenager.

He worked as a carpenter and scrap dealer for some time. But this kind of a life did not appeal to the ambitious youngster who wished to make it big in life. Interested in acting from a young age, he joined a traveling theater company as a handy-man, scene shifter and apprentice actor.

Good-looking, ambitious and talented, he soon rose through the ranks to become a leading romantic actor in theater productions. His fortunes changed for the better in 1919 when he came to the notice of the prominent theater director and producer Max Reinhardt who hired him as an actor for his production.

He worked in Reinhardt’s company until 1924. By the early 1920s he had also ventured into the fast developing film industry and soon gained a reputation as a talented character actor with his portrayal of village simpletons.

His acting career led to an interest in direction as well and he made his first film ‘Der Mensch am Wege’ (1923), based on a Leo Tolstoy short story, starring a young Marlene Dietrich. His film career thrived over the next few years with notable German films like ‘Das Wachsfigurenkabinett’ (Waxworks) (1924) and F. W. Murnau's ‘Faust’ (1926).

His life underwent a sea change in the politically turbulent Europe of the 1930s. With political instability and violence growing in Germany, Dieterle moved to the United States with his wife.

Already a well-known name in the international film industry, he did not face many challenges in beginning his Hollywood career. However, the initial films he made were not successful at the box office. Some of his films from this era are ‘Her Majesty, Love’ (1932), ‘Jewel Robbery’ (1932), ‘Adorable’ (1933), and ‘Fog Over Frisco’ (1934).

William Dieterle is best known for his biographical films, the most acclaimed of which is ‘The Life of Emile Zola’ the story of the French author Emile Zola, played by Paul Muni. It was a both a critical and a commercial success at the time of its release and in 2000 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".