Wolfgang Zilzer

The last years of his life he spent in Berlin where he died on the 26th of June 1991.

At the end of the 1980s Zilzer contracted Parkinson's disease and decided to return to Germany. His wife refused to do so, and their marriage ended in divorce after almost 50 years, close to both their deaths.

After his wife had attracted some attention in 1976 in the thriller The Marathon Man (with Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier ), the two came back to small film roles in Hollywood in old age.

The Internet Broadway Database lists a single credit for a Wolfgang Zilzer, in the 1943 play The Barber Had Two Sons.

Like other emigrants too Zilzer had a short entrance in "Casablanca" (1942). He played the man without a passport who is shot by French policemen at the beginning of the film.

Thanks to Ernst Lubitsch he found work in the film "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife". Together for Lubitsch he appeared in further film adaptions like "Ninotchka" (1939) and "To Be or Not To Be" (1942).

Because of the political situation he finally left Germany in 1937 and landed again in the USA.

After the assumption of power through the Nazis he emigrated to Paris but returned again to Germany in 1935 and got involved in the Jewish culture alliance.

Born to German parents in the US, he didn't realize he had US citizenship until he applied for a visa to move there in 1933.

In 1931 he gave a guest appearance in the USA where he appeared in German versions of American movies. One year later he came back to Germany. After the assumption of power through the Nazis he emigrated to Paris but returned again to Germany in 1935 and got involved in the Jewish culture alliance.

At the turn of the decade 1929/30 Zilzer recorded records for the newly founded Berlin-based "Kristall" as a refrain singer with the orchestras of Herbert Fröhlich and Bernard Etté . Two recordings with him on the Kalliope label are known from the "Berliner Rundfunk-Kapelle" Gerhard Hoffmann .

He was an actor and writer, known for Thérèse Raquin (1928), Union City (1980) and Enemy of Women (1944). He was married to Lotte Palfi Andor.

In the 20's he became established as a shy man in different detective movies and comedies like "Schützenliesl" (1926), "Mata Hari" (1927), Alraune" (1927) and "Thérèse Raquin" (1928).

With appearances in films from 1915 to 1986, Zilzer had one of the longest careers in cinema history.

He returned from Cincinnati to Germany with his father in 1905. Only two years later Wolfgang Zilzer made his stage debut and he became a demanded child actor on German stages.

Wolfgang Zilzer was born on January 20, 1901 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.