Wissenswertes

Interned in a German labor camp during World War II.

Of Russian origin.

Fluent in German and French.

Son of a Russian diplomat. Studied acting in Paris and first appeared on stage in France at the Theatre de la Michodiere. Appeared in post-war French films as debonair leading man, as well as doing occasional work as costume and set designer. Later went on to international co-productions in France, Germany and Italy.

Ivan Desny appears both in "Anastasia: Die letze Zarentochter" (1956) and the Ingrid Bergman film "Anastasia" (1956). In the former, he plays the real-life Gleb Botkin (son of the Imperial family's doctor, who was shot along with them in the 1918 massacre); in the latter, he plays the fictional Prince Paul Von Haraldsberg.

One of his favorite hobbies was painting.

Ivan Desny attended schools in Tehran, Washington, Paris and Brisbane.

Ivan Desny was a two-time German Film Award winner.

In 1980, Desny received an honorary German Film Award for "his continued outstanding individual contributions to the German film over the years.".

He had a lengthy career in French and German cinema, appearing in over 200 film and television roles over 50 years.

His father was Russian and a secretary at the French embassy in Beijing. He had a Swedish mother.

He had a leading role in Fassbinder's global success The Marriage of Maria Braun and also played in World on a Wire , Lola and Berlin Alexanderplatz .

After Ivan Desny played his first smaller roles in London in 1947 and 1949, director David Lean cast him in a leading role in the 1950 film Madeleine . Here he played alongside Ann Todd and Leslie Banks.

Ivan Desny made an international career with his unmistakable accent in his voice, but was discovered in Germany by Fassbinder and Wenders for the "New German Cinema".

Desny became internationally known in 1952 with the role of Senator's son Fred Clarke, who seduces the witness to the murder of a black man in the Sartre adaptation "The Honourable Prostitute" and tricks her into giving false testimony about the perpetrator, his cousin.