Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Birthdate
1890-04-18
Day of Death
1945-03-14
Place of Birth
Werbowitz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Verbivtsi, Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine]
Alexander Granach
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alexander Granach (April 18, 1890 – March 14, 1945) was a popular German actor in the 1920s and 1930s who immigrated to the United States in 1938. Granach was born Jessaja Gronach in Werbowitz (Wierzbowce/Werbiwci) (Horodenka district, Austrian Galicia then, now Verbivtsi, 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 the vampire classic Nosferatu (1922), in which the actor was cast as Knock, the lunatic counterpart to Renfield, effectively a substitute name for Dracula. He co-starred in such major early German talkies as Kameradschaft (1931). The Jewish Granach fled to the Soviet Union when Hitler came to power. When the Soviet Union also proved inhospitable, he settled in Hollywood, where he made his first American film appearance as Kopalski in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939) for 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. Perhaps his best role was as 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.
Filmography (48)
Radiohead X Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
2025
My Buddy
1944
The Seventh Cross
1944
The Hitler Gang
1944
Voice in the Wind
1944
Three Russian Girls
1943
For Whom the Bell Tolls
1943
Mission to Moscow
1943
Hangmen Also Die!
1943
Wrecking Crew
1942
Northwest Rangers
1942
Half Way to Shanghai
1942
Joan of Paris
1942
A Man Betrayed
1941
