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Maximilian Schell

Personal Info

Known For

Acting

Birthdate

1930-12-08

Day of Death

2014-02-01

Place of Birth

Vienna, Austria

Maximilian Schell

Biography

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.

Filmography (101)

⭐ 3.4 Role: Mr. Escher

Les brigands

2015
⭐ 0 Role: Jedermann (archive footage)

Jedermann Remixed

2011
No Image
⭐ 0 Role: Self

Maximilian Schell - Ein sehnsüchtiger Rebell

2010
⭐ 4.4 Role: Jacob Krinsten

Black Flowers

2009
⭐ 4.1 Role: Unknown

Darkness

2009
⭐ 6.6 Role: Diamond Dog

The Brothers Bloom

2008
⭐ 6.9 Role: Lawrence Sterne

The Shell Seekers

2007
⭐ 5.6 Role: Karl Friedrich Weidemann

Die Rosenkönigin

2007
⭐ 0 Role: Himself

Verstörung - und eine Art von Poesie. Die Filmlegende Bernhard Wicki

2007
⭐ 5.3 Role: Kogi

House of the Sleeping Beauties

2006
⭐ 2.3 Role: Dr. Alexander Ohlendorf

Die Alpenklinik

2006
⭐ 10.0 Role: Father Christoph

Die Liebe eines Priesters

2005
⭐ 9.0 Role: Self

In Conversation: Abby Mann and Maximillian Schell

2004
⭐ 5.2 Role: Fernando Hereira

The Return of the Dancing Master

2004
⭐ 7.0 Role: Casimir

Coast to Coast

2004