Authentic Letters by Director Emil Jannings, first winner of the Academy Award in 1928. Two Emil Jannings letters and a postcard, signed by this important movie director and actor. Jannings was the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1928.
We recently purchased 2 Emil Jannings letters and a postcard, signed by this important movie director and actor. Jannings was the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1928.
What make the letters special is the historical background:
1) A Letter from 1929 sent to the Theater Director Dr. Richard Beer- Hofmann, who fled Europe in 1938, emigrated to the USA and founded the Beer-Hofmann-Society in New York in 1946.
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2) A letter to Mr. Pia von Hartung, condoling after the death of "Dodo" von Dressler, her companion in life.
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3) A postcard with a large Autograph.
http://www.rubylane.com/shops/curioshop/iteml/col-2645
Emil Jannings (1884 -1950) was a German actor and the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor. He won the 1928 Oscar for two films, The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command. He also starred in F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, a film notable in silent cinema for its lack of title cards, and in the 1922 film version of Shakespeare's Othello.
He probably is best known for The Blue Angel (German: Der blaue Engel) a film directed by Josef von Sternberg in 1930, based on Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat. The film in which he starred along with Marlene Dietrich is considered to be the first major German sound film.
Jannings was one of the highest paid actors of his time.
Born Theodor Emil Janenz in 1884 Emil Jannings ran away from home at age 16 became a sailor and returned home disillusioned a year later. With 18 he made his professional stage debut and in 1906 he was invited to join Max Reinhardt's theater in Berlin, then considered to be the finest stage troupe in the world.
He established himself as a significant stage actor and debuted onscreen in 1914. By the mid-'20s he had an international reputation, and many considered him the world's greatest screen actor. In 1927 Paramount signed him and he moved to Hollywood and a year later Jannings won the very first Best Actor Academy Award. Because of his thick German accent, the advent of sound ended his American career. He returned to Germany in 1929.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was enlisted to participate in the state's propaganda machine. He was appointment to head Tobis, the company that produced his films, and he was honored as "Artist of the State" in 1941. At war's end Jannings was blacklisted by the Allied authorities, in 1946 the US military officially "denazified" him.
