Alexander Granach

{{Infobox person

| image = Alexander Granach by Eberth.jpg

| imagesize = 250px

| caption = Alexander Granach {{circa}} 1920

| name = Alexander Granach

| birth_name = Schaje Granoch

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1890|4|18}}

| birth_place = Werbowitz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary

| death_date = {{death date and age|1945|3|14|1890|4|18}}

| death_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| resting_place = Montefiore Cemetery

| othername = Jessaja Granach

| occupation = Actor

| yearsactive = 1920–1944

| spouse = {{marriage|Martha Guttmann|1914|1921|end=divorced}}

| children = Gad Granach

| partner = Lotte Lieven (1933–1945, his death)

}}

Alexander Granach (April 18, 1890 – March 14, 1945) was a German-Austrian actor in the 1920s and 1930s who emigrated to the United States in 1938.{{cite news|title=A. Granach Dead; Stage, Film Actor - Tomasino in 'A Bell for Adano' at the Cort Theatre Was 54 - Studied Under Reinhardt|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/03/16/84628530.html?pageNumber=15|accessdate=23 September 2016|work=New York Times|date=March 16, 1945|page=15}}

Life and career

Granach was born Schaje Granoch in Werbowitz (Wierzbowce/Werbiwci) (Austrian Galicia then, now Verbivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine), to Jewish parents and rose to theatrical prominence at the Volksbühne in Berlin. Granach entered films in 1922; among the most widely exhibited of his silent efforts was Nosferatu (1922), F.W. Murnau's loose adaptation of Dracula, in which the actor was cast as Knock, the film's counterpart to Renfield. He co-starred in such major early German talkies as Kameradschaft (1931).

The Jewish Granach fled to the Soviet Union when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. When the Soviet Union also proved inhospitable, he settled in Hollywood, where he made his first American film appearance as Kopalski in Ninotchka (1939) starring Greta Garbo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Granach proved indispensable to film makers during the war years, effectively portraying both dedicated Nazis (he was Julius Streicher in The Hitler Gang, 1944) and loyal anti-fascists. He portrayed Gestapo Inspector Alois Gruber in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1943). His last film appearance was in MGM's The Seventh Cross (1944), in which almost the entire supporting cast was prominent European refugees.

Granach died on March 14, 1945, in New York from a pulmonary embolism following an appendectomy. He was buried in Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.{{cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=Scott|title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons|date=2016|publisher=McFarland and Company|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|isbn=978-0-7864-7992-4|page=292|edition=Third|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOHgDAAAQBAJ|accessdate=23 September 2016}} Granach's autobiography, There Goes an Actor (1945) was republished in 2010 under the new title, From the Shtetl to the Stage: The Odyssey of a Wandering Actor (Transaction Publishers). He was survived by his long time partner, Lotte Lieven,{{Cite web|url=https://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/alexander-granach/du-mein-liebes-stueck-heimat.html|title=Alexander Granach: Du mein liebes Stück Heimat. Briefe an Lotte Lieven aus dem Exil|website=www.perlentaucher.de}} and by his son, Gad Granach. His son, who lived in Jerusalem, wrote his own memoirs with many references to his father.

Partial filmography

Das goldene Buch (1919)
Die Liebe vom Zigeuner stammt... (1920)
Camera Obscura (1921) – Der große Chef
The Big Big Boss (1921) – Der große Chef
Nosferatu (1922) – Knock
Lucrezia Borgia (1922) – Prisoner
Mignon (1922) – Il Gobbo
Earth Spirit (1923) – Schigolch
Fridericus Rex (1923) – Hans Joachim von Ziethen
Paganini (1923) – Ferucchio
Man by the Wayside (1923) – Shoemaker
Schatten – Eine nächtliche Halluzination (1923) – Shadowplayer
A Woman, an Animal, a Diamond (1923) – Archivar Lindhorst
I.N.R.I. (1923) – Judas Ischariot
Die Radio Heirat (1924)
Wood Love (1925) – Waldschrat – a sprite
Torments of the Night (1926) – Murphy
Hoppla, wir leben! (1927)
Svengali (1927) – Geiger Gecko
The Famous Woman (1927) – Diener bei Alfredo
I Once Had a Beautiful Homeland (1928) – Pollaczek, sein Bursche
The Adjutant of the Czar (1929) – Stranger
The Last Fort (1929) – Gestino
Pavement Butterfly (1929) – Coco
Flucht in die Fremdenlegion (1929) – Beppo, Legionär
The Last Company (1930) – Haberling
1914 (1931) – Friend of Jaurès
Danton (1931) – Marat
The Theft of the Mona Lisa (1931) – Redner
Kameradschaft (1931) – Kasper
Gypsies (1936) – Danilo – Camp Driver
Bortsy (1936) – Rovelli
Ninotchka (1939) – Comrade Kopalski
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) – Soldier (uncredited)
Foreign Correspondent (1940) – Hotel Valet (uncredited)
So Ends Our Night (1941) – The Pole
A Man Betrayed (1941) – T. Amato
It Started with Eve (1941) – Popalard – Apartment Tenant (uncredited)
Marry the Boss's Daughter (1941) – Nick (uncredited)
Joan of Paris (1942) – Gestapo Agent
Joan of Ozark (1942) – Guido
Halfway to Shanghai (1942) – Mr. Nikolas
Northwest Rangers (1942) – Pierre – Man in Casino (uncredited)
Wrecking Crew (1942) – Joe Poska
Hangmen Also Die! (1943) – Gestapo Insp. Alois Gruber
Mission to Moscow (1943) – Russian Air Force Officer (uncredited)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) – Paco
Three Russian Girls (1943) – Major Braginski
Voice in the Wind (1944) – Angelo
The Hitler Gang (1944) – Julius Streicher
The Seventh Cross (1944) – Zillich
My Buddy (1944) – Tim Oberta (final film role)

Literature

Alexander Granach: There Goes an Actor. Doubleday, Dorian and Co, Inc., Garden City 1945, ASIN B0007DSBEM
Alexander Granach: There Goes a Mensch: A Memoir. Atara Press, Los Angeles 2019, {{ISBN|9780982225158}}
Alexander Granach: Da geht ein Mensch. Ölbaum-Verlag, Augsburg 2003, (Neuauflage) {{ISBN|3-927217-38-7}}
Alexander Granach: From the Shtetl to the Stage: The Odyssey of a Wandering Actor. Transaction Publishers, 2010, {{ISBN|978-1-4128-1347-1}}
Albert Klein and Raya Kruk: Alexander Granach: fast verwehte Spuren. {{ill|Edition Hentrich|de}}, Berlin 1994, {{ISBN|3-89468-108-X}}
Alexander Granach: Mémoires d'un gardien de bordel. Anatolia, Paris 2009, {{ISBN|978-2-35406-040-4}}
Gad Granach: Heimat los!. Ölbaum-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, {{ISBN|3-927217-31-X}}
Gad Granach: Where Is Home? Stories from the Life of a German-Jewish Émigré. Atara Press, Los Angeles 2009, {{ISBN|9780982225110}}