Eyes: Gray-blue
Hair: Golden blond
Height: 5 ft 8 in
Weight: 172 pounds (through rigorous training)
(Statistics from an issue of "Mein Film" - 1927.)
So, now that you can make a fairly good mental picture of his appearance out of film, here is how he came into the world. ------
On Saturday, November 24, 1885, Friederich Rudolf Klein was born in Köln, Germany, on the Rhein River. He was the son of a high-ranking military officer. He had two siblings: a sister by his father's second marriage following the death of Rudolf's mother; and half-brother by his step-mother's second marriage after his father's death.
He was a boy whom his father wanted to become a career officer, so as a teenager Rudolf was sent to Kadettenschule, a military school of the Navy in Köln. But after three years of this, Rudolf abjectly refused a military career. He went back to high school and soon graduated. He then studied art history and literature at universities in Berlin and Bonn. While a university student, he took an interest in acting and began to take lessons in it on the side. His talent was soon discovered by an actor from the Vienna Burgtheater, Hans Siebert, who was impressed by Rudi's abilities, scouted him, and enrolled him in his drama class. To avoid confusion with another actor by the name of Rudolf Klein, he came up with the surname Klein-Rogge. In 1909, the young Rudolf Klein-Rogge made his theatrical debut at age 20 in "Julius Caesar", playing the role of Cassius, in the town of Halberstadt at the Stadttheater. He played at this theater until 1914, going to Aachen, Kiel and Düsseldorf through 1914-1915, and then at the end of 1918 he went to Nürnberg, where he became a member of the Bühnen and also started working as a stage director. He was also promoted to being a 'star' here for the first time.
~Before the team of "Lang and von Harbou" there was "Klein-Rogge and von Harbou"....
But here is another little-known fact: Rudolf Klein-Rogge was actually married four times, and Thea von Harbou was his second wife. His first marriage was to an actress named Gerda Melchior who had previously been married to Jewish Gefängnisdirektor Carl Finkelnburg., with whom she had a daughter named Hilde Finkelnburg. This child, Rudolf's stepdaughter, would later be known as "Ela Elborg", who became a successful screen writer. Born January 8, 1899 in Wohlau, Ela died on May 3, 2004 in München (Munich). Mein Film Magazine No. 69 from 1927 included a Steckbrief about Rudolf that stated he was currently married to Margarete Neff, but had been divorced twice, once from Thea von Harbou, which is again confirmation of an earlier marriage before Thea. His third marriage was to Margarete Neff, from 1921 until 1927. They met while working on the film, "Die Nächte des Cornelius Brouwer", in 1921. (Margarete herself was married a total of four times. ) Rudolf's fourth marriage was to Swedish actress, Mary Johnson, who was born Astrid Maria Carlsson in 1896 in Fors, Sweden. She died in 1975 in Brännkyrka, Sweden. Mary had also been married at one time to Einar Rod who played in "The Parson's Widow" released in 1920, and to Karl-Gerhard (Johnsson), born 1891 in Stockholm and died in 1964, who was a writer and an actor.
Although the exact date (1914 or 1918?) and the exact theater, (Lessing-Theater or somewhere else in Aachen) are still undecided among many conflicting sources, there was a pairing of Rudolf Klein-Rogge and budding stage actress Thea von Harbou. Some sources say they met in Aachen, before 1914, when she came under Klein-Rogge's stage direction. Although plausible, he was supposedly not to start directing until later years. Another source says they crossed paths in the Lessing-Theater in 1918, but this does not sound correct either if they were already married and moving to Berlin in 1917. Yet another source records that they divorced in 1921 after being married 7 years, which would put the marriage date sometime in 1914. Pick whichever version suits you for this, as I have not been able to track this down firmly. One well-researched book about Fritz Lang says Thea made her own stage debut in 1906 in Düsseldorf at the Schauspeilhaus and was acting on stage in Aachen just before World War I, where she eventually married during that war the stage director, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, reported to be a well cultivated and good-humored man. To make a long explanation much less complicated, they met sometime while working at the same theater and were married a short time after. Rudolf still played at theaters in small German provinces and quickly became well known and successful. He soon received an invitation around 1917 to come to the Berlin Lessing-Theater, where he was in very successful theatrical runs under the direction of Viktor Barnowsky.
Here I must hope that someone try to fill in what's missing, and correct what has gone wrong in the stories handed down over the years. The most popular idea behind his coming to Berlin was that von Harbou was not making enough money on her book sales where they were living, whether it was Aachen or Nürnberg, or somewhere else. It is said that Klein-Rogge made the decision to move to Berlin so she could be more successful in her own works, as she had now given up stage completely and was focusing on writing. Supposedly, when he came to Berlin, he tried to recreate his prior run of succeses at the Lessing-Theater, as he had in the smaller theaters.
One story says he was not well received at the Lessing and his career soon came to an abrupt halt, which later compelled him to look to moving pictures for work.
The other version of this story says he was so well known throughout the theater circuit that he was INVITED to the Lessing and was a great success there, then only moving into movies later on, I guess, by his own choice.
Regarding these two versions of that story, I am inclined to believe the latter because - and only because - there was a time when he did have trouble finding work, but that was after he was already in film. What happened was, I believe, as was said in reviews at the time, he had a great run at the Lessing in the productions of Viktor Barnowsky. He became very popular here, playing at this theater well into 1924. Some of his most famous appearances on stage during this period were his roles as the bank director in George Kaiser's play, "Von morgens bis Mitternacht " (1921) and in Emil Lind's adaptation of Kaiser's "Kolportage". George Kaiser would become one of the famous writers of the expressionistic '20s.
In 1917, one of Thea's stories was bought by May-Film GmbH. Thea got a job writing scenes for Joe May and it was he who introduced her to Fritz Lang. She began to work with him on the screenplay for her novel, "Das indische Grabmal".
In 1919, Rudolf and his wife Thea were living at Siemenstrasse 52-53 in Lankwitz in the area of Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin. Lang apparently lived in this general vicinity also, on Tharandterstrasse but in 1920 moved to Hohenzollerndamm 52, Apartment 3. Thea would later move into her own apartment in that same building.
In 1919, Rudolf went into doing film work as well, but only received minor supporting roles at first, working at different Berlin film companies such as Atlantic, Luna, and Deutsche Bioscop. He had a small featured role in Bruno Zeitner's "Das Licht Am Fenster" in 1919. Rudi did begin to get acclaim from the critics while playing parts in Film Serials with silent star, Ria Witt, under the direction of Zietner, and with Sybil Smolowa, under the direction of Rudolf Leffler.
By 1920, Joe May had decided to delay the production of "Das indische Grabmal" to first produce von Harbou's and Lang's "Das wandernde Bilde" and it was at this time that Thea's influence undoubtedly won her husband Rudolf Klein-Rogge a screen test for the part of the cousin of the twin brothers. It would be the first of many good roles under the demanding director. Shooting for "Das wandernde Bild" began in July 1920 in the Bavarian Alps. Then in 1921 came "Kampfende Herzen", a film that is said in some sources to be the rival to Metropolis (author's note: In seeing this film finally, I find that claim very hard to believe). Later in 1921 came "Der müde Tod" ("The Weary Death"), which entailed duo roles for Rudi in two of the three-episode story.
After this much good fortune, something went wrong. In 1920, Rudolf Klein-Rogge found himself without a wife. Why was this? Thea von Harbou had been meeting with Fritz Lang almost every day to work on manuscripts, etc. With so many common interests, talks became loving looks and later became advances. Lang was notorious for his flings with almost every woman he came into contact with. I'm sure Rudolf knew this well, but it has been said that he and Lang were the best of friends - why should he worry....? This all must have been very hard for him to cope with, finding out that his Thea was having an affair with his best friend, Fritz. But even though having lost his wife to his director, the year of 1922 brought a star into the silent era ------------
To get fourth, third, even second billing would have been by a stroke of pure luck for Klein-Rogge. His talents were not always being shown well in the roles he was playing. Some great moments came through in "Der müde Tod", but that film was not quite the vehicle to show what he could really do. Why he was chosen to play the legendary psychoanalyst from Hell is a mystery, but Fritz Lang's choice to use Klein-Rogge as his screen version of writer Norbert Jacque's Dr. Mabuse is by far the best thing that ever could have happened to Rudolf. As his first two-part film, this was a big move for Klein-Rogge, being that he got to be the title character on the grand scale that only UFA studio could furnish. In short, Germany never knew what hit it when this film premiered.
On April 27, 1922, the ground-breaking film "Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler" premiered at the UFA-Palast-Am-Zoo. If he had not been noticed before, Rudolf was certainly in the public eye now, as he was now the most-feared of all movie villains the audience had ever seen...and the most beloved. It is truly touching how the audience in those days knew how to treat a special actor: They would throw bouquets of flowers onto the stage when the star came out for his bow to the audience.. After the whole cast had taken their curtain call at the end of the film, Rudolf and Fritz Lang then went out a second time. Not since he had been the star of the theater had Rudolf had such a showering of affection from an audience. He had finally found his place.... and Thea felt she had found hers. She married Fritz Lang in August, 1922. Her family reported that her divorce from Rudolf was amicable, which certainly rings true, as she continued to help him in the film business for many years, evidenced in his roles in some of the films she was involved in: "Hanneles Himmelfährt" in 1934, "Elisabeth und der Narr" in 1934, "Der alte und der junge König" in 1935, and "Der Herrscher" in 1937.
Although it had been hard after just getting over a divorce and coming into a bad period in the German economy, Rudolf managed to stay on top, ironically, as the fearsome Dr. Mabuse. This film was the very first that the studio worked hard to publicize. Film-Kuriers, UFA-Magazins, posters, and all sorts of paper items were printed out with the good Doctor's visage in the print. But film critics of the time were divided on his performance. Fritz Goetz was of the opinion that Klein-Rogge's portrayal was first-class, alive, and convincing: "He is a gambler, beyond good and evil and he loves just one sensation: to gamble with the fates and lives of human beings (Vossiche Zeitung v. 28.4.1922). But Herman Ihering of the "Berliner Börsen-Courier" wrote on June 11, 1922: "Klein-Rogge, a routine actor, tried to act realistic by changing his face into various masks. This is not a good kind of acting... Klein-Rogge makes masks, but not with real life. He is just an imitator." Even at this early stage of film-making, critics were already up in arms(!) But it was Felicie Berger nailed the metaphorical star up on RKR's dressing room door in the Austrian magazine, "Mein Film": "Through his magnificent work in his film role as 'Dr. Mabuse', Rudolf Klein-Rogge arrived as a film artist of international importance."
I'd like to stop here and say what certainly some people must have wondered in those days about Rudy. What we see on the screen is a maniac, an all-powerful hypnotist with no sense of right and wrong, and no self-control when it comes to what he wants. But in real life, surely fans were stunned at how charming Rudolf was in person. I just find it completely intriguing that he could have become so beloved by the public , while on screen he had frightened them out of their wits. When his floating face flew toward the screen during Mabuse's psychic battle with the disguised von Wenk, the audience literally stood up and cheered. Somehow, I think they really liked him because he was an anti-hero of sorts, the exact polar opposite of the heroic type on the screen. Actually, no one in "Dr. Mabuse" seemed to be a cardboard character, not even the heroes. The realism was so close to what was happening in Germany at the time that Mabuse became more of a myth than a mere film character, an allegorical pilon standing to portray the social and moral decay of that time. This, I believe, is why the character is still so popular today. And even though several other actors played this role in remakes, it is Rudolf's portrayal that is still the one best remembered.
In 1923, after the phenomenal success with "Mabuse", Rudolf appeared in two pictures penned by Thea von Harbou: "Der steinerne Reiter", an expressionist fairy tale; and "Die Prinzessin Suwarin". Afterwards, he was summoned by the Lang/von Harbou team in 1924 to appear in the new UFA super-production - "Die Nibelungen".
Rudolf and a certain Gottfried Huppertz, an aspiring actor, had been friends since childhood, a fact that Rudi brought to his director's attention as early as the casting stage for "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler". He personally introduced Huppertz to Lang, which soon led to Huppertz having a walk-on role in the first part of that film. But Gottfried was also notable composer (in fact, he had dedicated his first composition to Rudolf), and this eventually led him to be the composer for the Lang mega-hits "Die Nibelungen" and "Metropolis".
Klein-Rogge was slated to appear in only the second half of "Die Nibelungen" - "Kriemhild's Revenge" - but he ended up playing a, albeit uncredited, part in the first half, "Siegfried", on a last-minute decision by Lang.
Paul Richter was the hero of the film, Siegfried; in fact it was the role of his life, but he had constant battles with Lang over how his scenes were being filmed. But when it came to the famous scene of Siegfried bathing in the blood of dragon, the fight of the century erupted over what to do here ----- Richter refused to go au natural for this pivotal scene.
I almost think that as a way to get back at Paul for not doing the scene, Lang called in Rudolf to do it as Richter's body double. For a reason yet to be explained, he, over anyone closer to Richter's build, had been chosen by Lang to film this segment. Stripped down to.... well, nothing, he did the scene while a less than pleased Richter stood off on the sidelines.
In "Kriemhild's Revenge", Rudolf appeared as the Hun King, Etzel - a role that demanded an elaborate makeup, which Rudolf applied himself utilising the rather testy substance collodium to achieve the effect of Etzel's facial scarring.
The exterior shots for the both parts of "Nibelungen" were shot simultaneously, sometimes on sets that stood next to each other, and one memorable behind-the-scenes still shows Rudi, in full Hun gear, cigar in hand, leaning on a set light whilst talking to Paul Richter, in full Siegfried regalia, reclining in a folding beach chair.
After a finishing "Nibelungen", Rudolf took part in several prolific films for UFA including "Pietro der Korsar", "Der rosa Diamant" and "Die lachende Grille."
Around 1926, Klein-Rogge was called into the Lang circle again, this time to play a role that had been tailored after his true self.
In "Metropolis", Rudolf was slated to play the eccentric inventor, C.A. Rotwang. But how coincidental this was for him, to have to act a character so emotionally destroyed over losing his beloved to his best friend. Thea von Harbou, in what probably was a show of sympathy to her ex-husband, must have written this role for him to be his definitive film counterpart, with a little mad science thrown in for good measure. The funny thing is what a hard time Rudolf had coping with the technical-minded Rotwang, as he himself would recall later on, because he was not at all good with such things in real life.
He wrote of this lack of knowledge of things mechanical in an article for UFA-Magazin about his experience in Metropolis - "One morning I found our workspace at Neubabelsburg strangely transformed (*lab set*). Strange for me, the nontechnical-type, who has not even the first idea of how to fix an electric doorbell." Later on, he speaks of what a time he had trying to make the transformation scene look convincing - an unexpected statement to read from the great actor, indeed. Therefore he said he just did everything as best he could and hoped it would not look ridiculous on screen. To his relief, he had done just what was needed, and the transformation scene came off as the highlight of the film.
"Metropolis" took an unheard-of 2 years in the making, the time allowing for Rudolf to even make a short trip to Paris to work on Alexandre Volkoff's "Casanova". It is no surprise that Rudolf said that by the time of the premiere, he had forgotten most of what he had done during filming. When he sat in the audience for the first time "Metropolis" was shown (I wish I had been there!), he was utterly thunderstruck at what the finished product. After all of the postproduction special effects had been added in, he could hardly believe what he was seeing, and commented upon it exceedingly. The nice closing to his magazine article was that he hoped everyone would enjoy watching "Metropolis" as much as he had.
One other thing that is noticeable in this self-written article is Rudolf's disliking of Fritz Lang's directing style. Although he was well aware of the need for acting perfection from his theater experience, Rudolf was appalled at Lang's brutal ways of getting actors to do as told. He was especially sympathetic to Brigitte Helm, at her having to endure the Machine-Man outfit for hours on end under the stifling hot lights. He witnessed the very first time she had to take a few steps in the stiff legs of the costume, and her great fall onto the hard floor that soon occurred. Feeling sorry for her rattled nerves and aching body, Rudi and a few other crew members started secretly slipping pocketchange into the slits of her armor casing. "She was a good money box," he'd remarked. The tired and grateful Helm would then pick out the change after she took off the outfit and would head to the cafeteria to buy herself hot chocolate.
As for Klein-Rogge's disapproval of Lang's acting direction, I think he came up with his own private way of getting back at Lang for all the hardships the director created for the cast: Rudolf never listened to Fritz' direction! After all, Rudi had too much pride in himself to be treated like a dog, as he himself was a director in theater. Sort of a clashing of egos must have been going on behind the scenes of many a film, but I should think Lang had to just fold his arms and be quiet, because Rudolf made it clear with such hits as "Dr. Mabuse" and "Die Nibelungen" that he knew well what he was doing. The only other actor to get away with this kind of nose-thumbing and not be fired was Bernhard Goetzke, who had been Rudolf's co-star in both halves of "Dr. Mabuse". I would have enjoyed seeing Lang's caged fury at having to let these two alone while they did their scenes together as the bad doctor and the chief inspector.
Shortly following "Metropolis" came "Spione" in 1928, almost a remake of "Dr, Mabuse". This was another hit film, but Rudy's last film for Lang for a long time, returning later to work for the director in a sound picture.
After "Spione" followed a period of working in France in 1928 and 1929, where he played most notably in Henri Chomette's "Le Requin", France's first big talking production. He seems to have made a total of 4 or 5 films there.
Then in 1933 Lang brought him back for one final role, a reprisal of his character of Dr. Mabuse, in "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse". Lang left Germany soon after this film, and that seems to be when Rudolf's career began to decline. With Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and Goebbels' control of the film industry, Rudi received much smaller parts.
But Rudolf was also an acting instructor, and one of his students was the Swedish-born Kristina Söderbaum, who studied with him in 1934, shortly after she came to Berlin to live with relatives after her parents had died in Sweden. She soon became involved in the Nazi propaganda film industry, which promoted her to stardom as "the ideal Arian woman" publicized by the National Socialists. Another of his pupils was the actress Mady Rahl, whom he later appeared alongside of in the 1937 film "Truxa."
In 1938 he had a change of pace writing the dialogue for "Sergeant Berry". His career continued winding ever downward and in the 1940s there was a 7-year period from 1942 until 1949 where he had no film credits. He finally played his last role on screen in an uncredited part of "Hexen", which was made in 1944 but not released until 1949. Thus in reality, his career actually had pretty much ended in 1942's "Hochzeit auf dem Bärenhof". It has been said that although he was an enthusiastic early partisan of the NSDAP, something occurred which caused him to fall out of favor with Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Goebbels ,and this undoubtedly was a major factor in the sudden decline in his career. With just one stroke of his pen, Goebbels had the power to effectively kill the career of Rudolf Klein-Rogge, particularly in light of his known friendship with director, Fritz Lang, whose Aryan bloodline was in question (he had a Jewish mother). After this, most of Rudi's parts were forgettable, but a few of the better roles he was able to land were in the 1936 Detlef Sierck film "Das Hofkonzert" and Erich Waschneck's comedy, "Die göttliche Jette". Also worth mentioning were a few other film roles that I've only come to appreciate after viewing firsthand: "Der Judas von Tirol" and "Der alte and Der junge König" gave him fairly good, though small, roles and suitably good characters.
One of the reasons Rudi had such a terrible time finding film work in the late 1930s to early 1940s was because he had essentially been black-listed by the propaganda minister when UFA Studios was under Nazi control. Goebbels made five lists for the actors and actresses of the time:
- List one had the top stars such as Hans Albers, Zarah Leander, Lil Dagover, Henny Porten etc.
- List two had a few hundred names who got work all the time, such as Otto Wernicke, Theo Lingen, etc.
- List three had even lesser favored stars.
- List four, which had only about ten names, was a fairly bad list to have your name on; any directors who wanted to use someone from this particular list had to give a statement as to why they would want an artist from this list.
- List five was the bottom of the barrel, as the only people on THIS list were ones who Goebbels truly hated and wanted seen less of in film, such as Joachim Gottschalk who with his Jewish wife Meta and son committed suicide rather than obey Goebbels' "suggestion" that they divorce..
Although not on the very worst of the lists, Rudi was on list number 4, thus making it difficult for any directors to get hold of him for any kind of film work. With this depressing fate dealt to him, matters only got worse for Rudolf because even his stage work did not earn him enough to take care of his family.
Sometime during World War II, Rudi formed his own theatre touring group and took it throughout Germany, Austria, and in Switzerland, continuing after the end of the War. He also directed and performed in plays at the well-known Kömodienhaus in Berlin, which was destroyed by bombs in November of 1943.
Death came for Rudolf on April 30, 1955 in the beautiful mountainous region of Wetzelsdorf, Austria where he had lived in retirement with his wife Mary Johnson. It has been written that he died in poverty and forgotten by the public. It has been reported that his wife Mary suffered a complete nervous breakdown after he died. He had one known child, a daughter by his fourth wife Mary Johnson, whose name is unknown. Mary also had a son from a previous marriage, Egil Hartmut Johnson, whom Rudolf accepted as if he were his own son. I haven't been able to track down where he was interred or how, but he was laid to rest somewhere close to the area but since then his grave has been reused.
- This biography was assembled through my own personal research and with the invaluable input of Uwe Melchert, Aitam Bar-Sagi, Frederick Sharp and Stefan Eickhoff, who also provided many translations. Other translations from old documents done by Tante Monika.
