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Maximilian Schell

Maximilian Schell

Birthday: 1930-12-08 | Place of Birth: Vienna, Austria

Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was a Swiss actor. Born in Austria, his parents were involved in the arts and he grew up surrounded by performance and literature. While he was still a child, his family fled to Switzerland in 1938 when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, and they settled in Zürich. After World War II ended, Schell took up acting and directing full-time. Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a lawyer in the legal drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). He was Oscar-nominated for playing a character with multiple identities in The Man in the Glass Booth (1975) and for playing a man resisting Nazism in Julia (1977). Fluent in both English and German, Schell earned top billing in a number of Nazi-era themed films. He acted in films such as Topkapi (1964), The Deadly Affair (1967), Counterpoint (1968), Simón Bolívar (1969), The Odessa File (1974), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Deep Impact (1998). On television, he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the NBC film Miss Rose White and the HBO television film Stalin (1992), the later of which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. He also portrayed Otto Frank in the TV film The Diary of Anne Frank (1980), the Russian emperor Peter the Great in the NBC series Peter the Great (1986), Frederick the Great in the British series Young Catherine (1991), and Brother Jean le Maistre in the miniseries Joan of Arc (1999). Schell also performed in a number of stage plays, including a celebrated performance as Prince Hamlet. Schell was an accomplished pianist and conductor, performing with Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein, and with orchestras in Berlin and Vienna. His elder sister was the internationally noted actress Maria Schell; he produced the documentary tribute My Sister Maria in 2002. Description above from the Wikipedia article Maximilian Schell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2015
Les brigands

as    Mr. Escher

2009
Black Flowers

as    Jacob Krinsten

2008
The Brothers Bloom

as    Diamond Dog

2007
Die Rosenkönigin

as    Karl Friedrich Weidemann

2007
The Shell Seekers

as    Lawrence Sterne

2006
2005
Die Liebe eines Priesters

as    Father Christoph

2004
Coast to Coast

as    Casimir

2004
The Return of the Dancing Master

as    Fernando Hereira

2003
Der Fürst und das Mädchen

as    Friedrich Fürst von Thorwald

2002
My Sister Maria

as    Himself

2002
Der Bestseller - Mord auf italienisch

as    Karl Steingraf

2001
Festival in Cannes

as    Viktor Kovner

2000
Just Messing About

as    Poser

2000
I Love You, Baby

as    Walter Ekland

1999
Joan of Arc

as    Brother Jean le Maistre

1999
Joan of Arc

as    Brother Jean le Maistre

1999
On the Wings of Love

as    Hochberg

1998
Vampires

as    Cardinal Alba

1998
Deep Impact

as    Jason Lerner

1998
Left Luggage

as    Mr. Silberschmidt

1997
Telling Lies in America

as    Dr. Istvan Jonas

1997
The Eighteenth Angel

as    Father Simeon

1996
The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years

as    Cardinal Vittorio

1996
The Vampyre Wars

as    Rodan

1995
Little Odessa

as    Arkady Shapira

1994
Abraham

as    Pharaoh