Trivia

The end of Siodmak's life was a drama. He was as good as destituted and nearly forgotten. He drowned his loneliness with alcohol. When he was dying his boozer fellows robbed his flat.

He directed Charles Laughton (a close friend) and George Sanders, actors with indelible personas, and got from both perhaps the unlikeliest, most natural and under-acted performances of their careers.

In 1939 he went to the USA where he could realize B-Movies between 1940 and 1943. His mentor was director Preston Sturges.

Siodmak immersed himself in the creative process and genuinely loved working with actors; in fact, he was considered an actor's director, discovering Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis, Debra Paget, Maria Schell, Mario Adorf, and skillfully directing actresses, such as Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Dorothy McGuire, Yvonne de Carlo, Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Ella Raines. He managed with Lancaster to capture a youthful vulnerability in "The Killer"-despite the actor's age (he was 33). He was able to get a believable, dramatic performance from Gene Kelly. He also helped raise Ava Gardner's public profile.

Brother of writer/director Curt Siodmak, brother-in-law of Henrietta Siodmak.

He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of stylish, unpretentious Hollywood films noirs he made in the 1940s, most notably The Killers (1946).

Robert Siodmak had first contacts to the theater as an actor in small parts at the "Stattliches Schauspielhaus" in Dresden.

His increasing popularity involved disadvantages. The studios fought over Siodmak, the budgets of his movies became constantly higher. However this led to the point that the production interfered more and more in the realization of the movies, after all it was a question of money. The creativity of Robert Siodmak was restricted through it.

Nephew of producer Seymour Nebenzal.

There was a brief and profitable foray into television in Great Britain with the series O.S.S. (1957-58).

In 1943 his brother Curt initiated a seven-year for him by Universal. There were created the so-called "film noir". Robert Siodmak's popularity increased year to year and achieved the zenith in 1946 with "The Killers". Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster became stars in one go.

In 1925 he worked in the film business for the first time, at the beginning as translator of inserted captions, later as editor.

In the 50s and 60s some well-known German movies came into being. Siodmaks finished his artistic career with several Karl-May-Adaptions and with the monumental film "Kampf um Rom" (68). It turned out that this kind of movies didn't suit him not at all.

He died alone in 1973 in Locarno, seven weeks after his wife's death.

In 1951 he came back to Europa and worked first in France and England then in Germany.

Robert Siodmak was born in Dresden/Germany. His father came from Tennessee to Germany in 1899 in order to get married. He made a fortune in the USA and was an American citizen.

In 1955, Siodmak returned to the Federal Republic of Germany to make Die Ratten, with Maria Schell and Curd Jurgens, winning the Golden Berlin Bear at the 1955 Berlin Film Festival. It was the first in a series of films critical of his homeland, during and after Hitler.

He assisted for the directors Alfred Lind and Kurt Bernhardt (also known as Curtis Bernhardt) and could realize his first direction job in 1929 for "Menschen am Sonntag". This brought him in a contract with the Ufa, and he shot few films for that ^production company.

The British Film Institute held a retrospective of his career in April and May 2015.

Robert Siodmak emigrated in the 30s to France, his brother Curt Siodmak - a successful author and screenwriter (Donovan's Brain) - emigrated to England, his second brother Rolf chose suicide at the age of 20.

A thorough analysis of Siodmak's American period is in "The File on Robert Siodmak in Hollywood: 1941-1951," by J. Greco.

Siodmak was last seen publicly in an interview for Swiss television at his home in Ascona in 1971.

Siodmak's return to Europe in 1954 with a Grand Prize nomination at the Cannes Film Festival for his remake of Jacques Feyder's Le grand jeu was a misstep, despite its stars, Gina Lollobrigida (two of them) and Arletty in the role originated by Françoise Rosay, Feyder's wife.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 1001-1005. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.