Egon Brecher
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Egon Brecher (18 February 1880 – 12 August 1946) was an Austria-Hungary-born actor and director, who also served as the chief director of Vienna's Stadts Theatre, before entering the motion picture industry.
The son of a professor, Brecher began studying philosophy in 1900 at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He did not finish his studies, deciding to become an actor. He appeared on several provincial stages in Germany and Austria until 1910, and then played in Vienna on various occasions, directed by Josef Jarno until 1921.
In 1907, he founded an initiative (which lasted for something like one or two years) to play modern Yiddish theatre in German language with Siegfried Schmitz and members of the student club ‘Theodor Herzl’ like Hugo Zuckermann and Oskar Rosenfeld. In 1919 he was co-founder of the Freie Jüdische Volksbühne in Vienna, a Yiddish theatre, which existed for three years.
Then, in 1921, he moved to New York to act on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s to appear in foreign-language versions of American films. In the mid-1930s he appeared in classic horror films The Black Cat, Werewolf of London, The Black Room, Mark of the Vampire and The Devil-Doll, and worked steadily in the espionage films of the 1930s/40s, his Slavic accent landing him roles both noble and villainous. One of his largest screen roles was in 1946's So Dark the Night. He died later in 1946, aged 66, of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.
Acting
Movie
Rebecca
as Hotel Desk Clerk (uncredited)
1940
Movie
The Black Cat
as The Majordomo
1934
Movie
Werewolf of London
as Priest (uncredited)
1935
Movie
Mark of the Vampire
as Coroner (uncredited)
1935
Movie
Man Hunt
as Jeweler
1941
Movie
The Devil-Doll
as Detective (uncredited)
1936
Movie
Heidi
as Inn Keeper
1937
Movie
All This, and Heaven Too
as Doctor (uncredited)
1940
Movie
Black Legion
as Dombrowski
1937
Movie
You and Me
as Mr. Levine
1938
Movie
Cornered
1945
Movie
Kings Row
as Dr. Candell
1942
Movie
Above Suspicion
as Gestapo Official (Uncredited)
1943
Movie
The Diary of a Chambermaid
as The Postman (Uncredited)
1946
Movie
So Dark the Night
as Dr. Boncourt
1946
Movie
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
as Fritz Muller - German Agent (uncredited)
1939
Movie
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet
as Martl
1940
Movie
Charlie Chan's Secret
as Ulrich
1936
Movie
Knute Rockne All American
as Elder in Norway (uncredited)
1940
Movie
Juarez
as Baron von Magnus (uncredited)
1939
Movie
Now and Forever
as Doctor (uncredited)
1934
Movie
To the Last Man
as Mark Hayden
1933
Movie
Mission to Moscow
as Heinrich Sahm (uncredited)
1943
Movie
Sister Kenny
as Frenchman (uncredited)
1946