Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck[1] (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936),[2][3][4] known professionally as Max Schreck, was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampireCount Orlok in the film Nosferatu (1922).
Early life
Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later, his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district of Teltow.
Schreck's father did not approve of his son's ever-growing enthusiasm for theatre. His mother provided the boy with money, which he secretly used for acting lessons, although only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he travelled briefly across the country with poet and dramatist Demetrius Schrutz.
Schreck received his training at the Berliner Staatstheater (State Theatre of Berlin), completing it in 1902.[3] He made his stage début in Meseritz and Speyer, and then toured Germany for two years, appearing at theatres in Zittau, Erfurt, Bremen,[3]Lucerne,[3]Gera,[3] and Frankfurt am Main.[3] Schreck then joined Max Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin.[5] Many members of Reinhardt's troupe went on to make significant contributions to the German film industry.[5]
Schreck's second collaboration with Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau was the comedy Die Finanzen des Grossherzogs (The Grand Duke's Finances, 1924).[5] Even Murnau did not hesitate to declare his contempt for the picture.[5] In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films, his career surviving the advent of sound until 1936, when he died from heart failure.[8]
Personal life
Schreck was married to actress Fanny Normann,[5] who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck.
One of Schreck's contemporaries recalled that he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor and skill in playing grotesque characters. He also reported that he lived in "a remote and incorporeal world" and that he often spent time walking through forests.[8]
There were rumours at the time of Nosferatu and for many years afterwards that Schreck did not actually exist and was a pseudonym for the well-known actor Alfred Abel.[9]
Death
On 19 February 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the play Don Carlos, standing in for Will Dohm. That evening, he felt unwell, and the doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning of a heart attack.[10] His obituary especially praised his lead role performance in Molière's play The Miser.[10] He was buried on the 14th of March 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf in Brandenburg.[2]
Schreck's portrayal of the Orlok character later became a recurring character in the SpongeBob SquarePants universe as the night shift manager for the Krusty Krab; this was initially portrayed using archive stills of Schreck before the role was cast with actors Alexander Ward and Dee Bradley Baker.
A reenactment at Max Schreck's grave in Stahnsdorf near Berlin is depicted in the 2022 silent film "F.W.M. Symphony" by visual artist Thomas Hörl.[15]
In the tabletop role-playing game "Vampire: The Masquerade", members of the clan Nosferatu operate a secret computer network known as SchreckNET, named after Max Schreck.
^All reliable sources agree as to Schreck's actual date of birth and date of death.(Brill, Olaf. 2004, Walk, Ines. 2006) However, at least until 9 March 2009 the Internet Movie Database had incorrect and self-contradictory details. (IMDB bio: "Date of Birth: 6 September 1879," ... "born on June 11, 1879" ... "Date of Death 26 November 1936," ... "death from a heart attack on February 19, 1936")
^McDowell, W. Stuart. "A Brecht-Valentin Production: Mysteries of a Barbershop", Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter, 1977), pp. 2–14; and "Acting Brecht: The Munich Years", by W. Stuart McDowell, in The Brecht Sourcebook, Carol Martin, Henry Bial, editors (Routledge, 2000) p. 71–83.
^William K. Everson, The Bad Guys: A Pictorial History of the Movie Villain, The Citadel Press: New York, 1964
^ abBrill 2004, Peter Trumm: obituary in Münchner Neueste Nachrichten vol. 89, no. 52, on 21 February 1936. "am Donnerstag früh um einhalb neun Uhr im Schwabinger Krankenhaus gestorben" (ie. 08:30 in the morning of February 20, 1936)
^Nugent, Phil (13 May 2008). "Digging Up Max Shreck, the Screen's Original Dracula". Retrieved 21 May 2009. The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, starring John Malkovich as Murnau, was a darkly comic fantasy in which it was revealed that "Shreck" was an actual vampire (played by Willem Dafoe) that the director had brought in to lend his authenticity to the role. It was rooted in a film-scholar in-joke that went back decades.
^"Batman YTB". Archived from the original on 29 January 2009. Retrieved 21 May 2009. The script gave the writer (Daniel Waters) license to create his own villain in the form of Christopher Walken's nefarious Max Shreck, named after Max Schreck, the star of F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922).
^McCarthy, Todd (15 May 1992). "Batman Returns Review". Variety. Retrieved 21 May 2009. Max Shreck, a character named, as an in-joke, after the German actor who starred as the screen's first Dracula in F.W. Murnau's 1922 "Nosferatu."
