Wissenswertes

Fell foul of Hitler in World War II, when he aided in the escape of Austrian Jews from Nazi persecution. In 1945, he was arrested for 'high treason' and briefly reported as having been killed.

On screen, he was often cast in musical comedy or operetta. The archetypal amiable Viennese charmer, he was at his most popular when acting alongside crusty character comedian Hans Moser. His stock-in-trade screen characters were usually working men: porters, 'fiaker' drivers, landlords, also composers and academics. Occasionally, he stepped up in rank to military brass (Field Marshall Radetzky) or aristocrats (Graf Lilienstein). In later life, his wider acting range encompassed jovial, wine, women & song-loving old-timers, eccentric loners, abrasive patriarchs and senile old dodderers.

His father was an engineer and builder of church organs. He also wrote a textbook, "Welteislehre", on glacial cosmology.

Trained at the Otto theatrical school in Vienna and made his stage debut in 1919 in Reichenbach in the play "Lumpazivagabundus" (in 1936, he also acted in the filmed version). Subsequently appeared on stage in Prague and Berlin and at the Kabarett der Komiker. From 1940 to 1943, he belonged to the ensemble of the Vienna Burgtheater.

During World War I, he served in a mountain artillery regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army, rising to the rank of Oberleutnant.

His sister in law, actress Paula Wessely, used her connections with German officials in the last year of WWII to save him from being executed for espionage.