Kurt Kasznar

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Kurt Kasznar (born Kurt Servischer; August 12, 1913 to September 6, 1979) was an Austrian-American stage, film, and television actor who appeared on Broadway; Born in 1913, The Sound of Music, and Barefoot in the Park, and had several notable roles in television and film. According to The New York Times, "a large, glib, dapper man who spoke with an accent was almost always depicted as some sort of a Continental gentleman." Kasznar was one of the first US Army photographers to photograph the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a soldier in World War II.

Early life

Kurt Servischer was born in Wien, Austria-Hungary, on August 13, 1913. His family was Jewish. Kurt's father died early in life. Kurt assumed his surname after his mother married Hungarian restaurateur Ferdinand Kasznar. Kasznar met director Max Reinhardt while serving as an apprentice waiter at his stepfather's restaurant and enrolled in his seminars. Later, Kasznar said, "I learned to act, write, build sets, and live."

In Der Zirkuskönig (The King of the Circus, 1924), the last film directed in Vienna by Max Linder, at age eleven. In 1931, Kasznar appeared on stage in a Folge of Jedermann (Everyman) at the Salzburg Festival, he was first on stage.

Private life

Cornelia Woolley, an American woman, married Kasznar following her 1939 divorce from her second husband. Woolley, the daughter of a New York woolen merchant, was well-known in theater for her philanthropy. She died unexpectedly in June 1948, at the age of 48; at the time, Kasznar was appearing in John Houseman's Broadway production Joy to the World.

As they performed together in the Broadway performance of The Happy Times (1950), Kasznar met his second wife, actress Leora Dana. They married in 1950 and divorced in 1958.

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Career

Kasznar left Austria in 1936 for the United States, with Max Reinhardt's theater company. He appeared in Reinhardt's production The Eternal Road, portraying Zebulon in the premiere performance on July 7, 1937, and appeared in at least a dozen roles during the epic's three-month run on Broadway.

Crazy With the Heat, a two-act Broadway musical revue that ended in financial loss, was produced by Kasznar in 1941. He was drafted into the United States Army later this year. He was trained as a cinematographer and later served in the Pacific. He filmed landings on New Guinea and in the Philippines, as well as the signing of the Japanese surrender onboard the USS Missouri, as attached to a photographic unit. He was one of the first Army photographers to film the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's atomic bombings.

Corporal Kurt S. Kasznar wrote and performed in his only play, First Cousins, which he dedicated to the thousands of foreign-born Americans who were in service. Kasznar's performance was one of five that won a competition for soldier-playwrights and was included in the 1943 book The Army Play by Play. The one-act plays were staged at Hyde Park for President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Broadway for the benefit of the Sailors and Soldiers Club. Albert Wertheim's book Staging the War: American Drama and World War II, published in 2004, "by far the most successful play in The Army Play by Play collection" describes First Cousins, which finished fourth in the championship and fifth in the competition.

In the 1950 revival of Samuel A. Taylor's play, The Happy Time, Kasznar's first major Broadway appearance was in the 1950 production. For the 1952 film version, he reimagined his role as Uncle Louie, and received a Golden Globe Award for his contribution. Kasznar appeared on Broadway in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1955-1966), and he appeared in the original Broadway production of Waiting for Godot (1956).

Look After Lulu, by No.l Coward. In March 1959, Kasznar was playing detective Nero Wolfe in what would have been television's first series based on Rex Stout's characters. The Nero Wolfe series was originally scheduled to air on CBS in September 1959, with co-starring William Shatner as Archie Goodwin, and only a few episodes were produced.

In the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music (1959-1963), Kasznar played Max Detweiler, for which he received a Tony Award nomination. Mr. Kasznar was the only actor who had never missed a single performance when the musical reached its 1,000th anniversary of appearances," The New York Times reported. He was discussed as a possibility to re-create his stage appearance in The Sound of Music's film version, but Richard Haydn took the spotlight. Victor Velasco appeared in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963–1966).

In several Fiddler on the Roof films, he appeared as Tevye. Myrna Loy, Edward Mulhare, and Riznar also appeared in John Houseman's Don Juan in Hell from 1974 to 1979, appearing in 158 cities in six months. Mel Gussow, a New York Times columnist, wrote that he appeared in Mansky's The Play's the Thing in 1978 with "enormous authority." "It is the kind of character he has played often, and ideally, on stage and in films."

Kasznar appeared in more than 80 films and television shows, and he appeared in the Irwin Allen science fiction television series Land of the Giants as Alexander Fitzhugh. Lili, Kiss Me Kate, The Last Time I Saw Paris, My Sister Eileen, A Farewell to Arms, and 55 Days at Peking were among his feature films.

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