Introduction
Erich Oswald Stroheim, known in the United States as Erich von Stroheim, was a master creator of people. He did not merely create characters in the stories he wrote, directed, or in which he appeared. He created himself.
Some of his creations lasted better than others. Erich von Stroheim the actor was known as “The Man You Love to Hate,” [1] a portrayer of villainous Germanic characters whose performances were so skilled that much of the American public believed he really was evil.[2] But he demolished that perception in interviews and when he became Erich von Stroheim the director, known for extravagance, perfectionism, a sometimes very nasty temper, and artistic dreams which were never to be fulfilled. [3] That persona was also lost, when his directing career ended in a kind of self-destruction, re-surfacing only a few times when he was cast as versions of himself in films like “The Lost Squadron” and “Sunset Boulevard.”
The Erich von Stroheim which stood the test of time the best was accepted as fact until some time after his death. Born the son of a Jewish hat-maker and refused repeatedly by the Austrian army, Stroheim identified himself at Ellis Island when he emigrated in 1909 as “Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim,” and told everyone that he was the son of nobility and had seen action with the Austrian army. He invented a complete, if rather fanciful and romantic, past for himself which was not seriously questioned until several years after his death. As late as 1971, when Thomas Quinn Curtiss published his biography, Stroheim’s version of his life story had firm believers.
For all the troubles and successes he had as an artist, Erich von Stroheim’s greatest creation was that of himself.
Screen persona: The Man You Love To Hate
From his first real role, as a pompous butler in “Old Heidelberg,” Stroheim began to craft his screen persona. With the help of casting directors and his Germanic appearance, he was soon typecast as the evil Prussian officer.
Once Stroheim began playing variations on the “Evil Hun” persona, his appearance rarely varied. It wasn’t until the late thirties that he played non-military characters on a regular basis, and even then, many of the characteristics that marked his early appearance remained.
Stroheim’s standard “Evil Hun” persona had a perfect close-cropped military haircut and wore an immaculate and form-fitting officer’s uniform, a monocle, white gloves (usually with the cuffs turned down), a heavy gold chain bracelet (a gift from the third Mrs. Stroheim), and a black mourning band. He often carried a cane, and invariably smoked cigarettes, often with a holder. He had graceful and very European manners (complete with heel-clicking, hand-kissing, and bowing) when in polite company or when trying to seduce a woman, but could quite easily turn vicious and cruel when appropriate situations arose (such as an unwilling woman).
Even Stroheim’s non-military personae retained the European manners, monocle, bracelet, short haircut, and gloves, and many masqueraded at some point as military men, even if they did not actually don a uniform. [4]
Stroheim’s first “evil Hun” role was in “Panthea,” where he has a bit part as a Russian lieutenant of police. The April 1917 issue of Photoplay magazine referred to his performance: “The lieutenant who comes to arrest Panthea in the early episodes is the perfect picture of the ‘well, it’s all in the day’s work’ type of blasé young militarist” (Lennig, 45). From that film until he began directing himself, nearly every role he played was a variation on that character.
Stroheim often encouraged the public to mingle his persona with the one he took on for the parts. Anita Loos recalled that during the filming of “For France,” later in 1917,
Von used to leave the studio to prowl Fifth Avenue in full make-up, flashing his monocle at every pretty woman who crossed his path. Such behavior mystified passersby, who wondered how a German officer had been allowed to invade the USA in the midst of war.
Peg [one of the Talmadge girls] used to warn Von not to wear that uniform on the street. “You’re making yourself a target for rocks!” she’d say. Von would agree, with an enigmatic smile, but he went right on courting disaster. [5]
Although Stroheim did not always walk around in costume, he never discarded his Prussian military haircut, his military manners, or his Viennese accent. Nor did he make a serious attempt to combat this typecasting as the “evil Hun.” When he began to write and direct his own films, he regularly wrote wicked Prussian parts for himself.
As time went on, Stroheim became increasingly associated with his screen persona and the public became more convinced that he really was an evil Prussian military man. Stroheim seemed to relish the confusion, even though it nearly cost him his third wife. While they were still dating, he took her to see one of his “evil Hun” pictures:
She wanted to see my picture “Unconquered” [He meant “The Unbeliever.”] I put on my cap and pulled it down over my eyes and took her to the picture. After the show, she took one look at me and ran away. I finally caught up with her, and she said, ‘I don’t think I want to go home with you.’”[6]Peter Noble reports that it took all his persuasive power to convince her that he wasn’t really like that.[7]
The first two films Stroheim both directed and starred in also portrayed him as “the man you love to hate.” In the first film, “Blind Husbands,” he played Lieutenant Von Steuben, an Austrian officer who did his best to seduce nearly every woman who caught his eye. In “Foolish Wives,” he was “Count” Karamzin, a phony Russian nobleman who made his living by scamming tourists in Monte Carlo.
His last role in one of his own films remade him as a reforming hero. In “The Wedding March” Stroheim, as Prince Nicki, changed from dissolute rake to a man of nobility who gave up true love for the sake of duty.
Stroheim’s screen persona stood him in good stead, and he played variations on “the man you love to hate” for most of the rest of his career. But the public’s perception of him as the evil Hun was soon displaced by his director persona – the European martinet director.
The Mad Genius – Stroheim as Director
Although Stroheim’s career as a director lasted only a single decade (beginning with “Blind Husbands” in 1919 and ending with the aborted “Queen Kelly” in 1929, it included only seven completed films), it made an indelible mark on the history of film. What held him back was yet another facet of his personality, another persona: Stroheim was the prototype martinet director, an insane perfectionist who would spare no expense to make his masterpiece flawless. How much of this was Stroheim’s genuine personality how much of it was assumed, and how much was his attempt to surpass the exaggeration of studio publicists, is impossible to know. Certainly, had he been more reasonable, his career as a director would have been longer, but he was doomed by his eternal and very public quest for perfection and his insistence, in his later films, on epic length to create detailed character portrayals.
There is no question that he was extremely talented. When the legendary Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein arrived in Hollywood, he was asked what in the American cinema he admired most. Peter Noble reports that he immediately replied, “Chaplin, Stroheim, and Walt Disney,” and that upon meeting Stroheim, he cried, “we show ‘Greed’ to all our young directors, writers and technicians as an example of all that is best in the cinema!”[8] In 1958 the Brussels Cinémathéque listed “Greed” as the 6th of the top twelve films of all time, and Stroheim as the 9th of the greatest directors; the 1962 Sight and Sound listed “Greed” 4th and Stroheim 10th. [9]
Stroheim became known almost immediately for his talent, utter self-confidence and insistence upon complete control. When Carl Laemmle changed the name of Stroheim’s first picture from “The Pinnacle” to “Blind Husbands,” Stroheim was enraged, and took out a full-page ad in Motion Picture News in protest. Claiming that “the title was just as much a part of the picture as any scene in it,” he complained that not only was it changed against his will but that the new title was stupid:
A beautiful title, a meaningful title, a title that meant everything to the man who created it, a title that represented months and years of creative effort in producing this picture – all tossed away in a moment for a name which is the absolute essence of commercialism. A name in which there is no beauty – no sense of the artistic. A name which I would have rejected in disgust had it been submitted to me. I would, in fact, have been ashamed of myself had I even thought of it. (Lennig, 104).Stroheim would continue to rage against commercial changes for the rest of his directorial career as one after another, his films were cut down to accommodate both the usual duration of under two hours and the censors’ distaste for sex.
On the set, Stroheim was a notorious perfectionist, working late into the night to get every detail just right. His scripts were extraordinarily detailed, including precise camera angles and specific descriptions of the action. As time passed, he became more and more detail-oriented and meticulous, saying in 1927 that
a capable director is not necessarily content with a scene after it has been shot five or six times, or after he has spent the scheduled four days on it. Perhaps one more shot, or another day would give him the desired result; does that not justify his delay? … What we want is better pictures, but restraint will never produce them.[10]Everything had to be just right before he would move on, a practice which drew out shooting schedules and often lengthened scenes as he added details to improve things.
Stroheim did everything he could to get the performance he wanted out of his actors. His preference for unfamiliar and unusual faces meant that he often worked with inexperienced actors, and while many actors admired and liked him, others resented his insistence on absolute control and his outbursts of temper.
Although his perfectionism produced excellent films, it also produced very long films, particularly after his first two pictures. Again and again his work had to be cut down to fit the demands of distribution. Picture after picture was put out in radically different form from what he intended, and his last two films were not completed because he was dismissed or shooting was stopped. “The Wedding March” was intended to be a two-part film, but shortly after he started filming, Stroheim was given the axe. Likewise, “Queen Kelly,” originally intended as an epic, was halted because, among other serious problems, it was greatly behind schedule and Stroheim insisted on focusing on aspects of the script which would likely be censored, at least in the view of producer Joseph P. Kennedy, who was not unaware of the opinions of the Catholic hierarchy and the Hays Office.
His first two pictures, “Blind Husbands” and “The Devil’s Passkey,” demonstrated that Stroheim was capable of making good films on time and on budget. Why might he have later allowed his perfectionism and impossible artistic goals to get in the way of his success as a director?
Theories on this subject vary widely. Lennig writes that Stroheim had self-destructive tendencies, marring his carefully crafted films by “being so intransigent that the work was ruined.” Lennig continues:
In short, he harbored a self-destructive urge, as if he wanted to spite the world. His films’ inordinate length made him as hateful in producers’ eyes as his Hun portrayals had seemed in the eyes of the public.[11]Stroheim’s apparent desire to be hated pervaded his time in Hollywood, from his “The Man You Love to Hate” persona to his time as a martinet director. Although this desire was not overwhelming – he defended himself in public and could be quite affable when he chose – it does appear to be a consistent undercurrent. He made the movie-going public hate him, courted public hate by (as mentioned above) wearing his German military costume off the set, and he had no qualms about upsetting producers.
Others, following Stroheim’s own interpretation of his actions at the time, believe that he was simply following his heart and doing his best to make what he felt would be an excellent film. According to this theory, his only fault was that he was out of synch with his surroundings and belonged in an environment more open to epic films.
Stroheim himself attributed his difficulties to passion and dedication. He said in an 1935 interview:
I recognize that, in those days, as now, I had my faults, and made my mistakes. Everybody does. Among my weaknesses from the studio’s point of view you might have reckoned my enthusiasm, my sincerity and my thoroughness. …[When I started a film] I became utterly absorbed in it until I had finished it my own way. My sincerity demanded that I follow my own line of inspiration in whatever I might undertake. Call it pig-headedness if you like – others have done so.”[12]This interpretation does not account for Stroheim’s early films, however, and their adherence to normal feature-length running time.
It seems likely that the answer lies with a combination of self-destructiveness and self-confidence inspired by the success of his first two films. Past success, Griffith’s ground-breaking epic films, and a touch of the same destructive urge that made him “The Man You Love to Hate” may have led Stroheim to believe that he actually could succeed in his attempts to produce in-depth character studies longer than normal feature films.
A Desecration: Stroheim’s Past, Myth and Fact
Lennig writes, “Stroheim spent so many years creating a mythic past for himself that uncovering the truth is perhaps a desecration.” [13] And indeed, it does seem almost disrespectful to tear down his elegant and carefully-constructed web of half-truths and outright fabrications.
Stroheim’s films asked his audience to suspend their disbelief and watch as parables unfolded on the screen. As grittily realistic as Stroheim’s scripts often were, they also contained the naïve innocence and beauty reminiscent of a fairytale. Likewise, the past Stroheim created for himself has a sort of sparkling fairytale quality which asks the audience to suspend their disbelief, giving those who shrug off the myth to find the truth the air of spoilsports, like an audience member who stands up and shouts at the enraptured masses, “it’s only a movie!”
Stroheim invented a history for himself in accordance with the longings his birth and abilities had severed him from irrevocably, and to take his imaginings away from him seems to add insult to injury. However, Stroheim is no more, and to appreciate the audacity of his fabrications, we must examine the facts.
It is a minor miracle that it took so long for his carefully-constructed past to be unraveled. The sections concerning his early time in the United States could have been checked, but were not. From the day of his immigration through his obituary notice in the New York Times, his story reigned in the United States as the truth.
Stroheim’s story was roughly consistent – he rarely contradicted himself – and he stuck to it both during interviews and when Universal Studios was composing its publicity. It was not until his birth records were published in the winter 1961-62 issue of Sight and Sound by Dennis Marion that his version of his life story began to be questioned.
Parentage
Stroheim’s parents varied slightly in different versions of his story, but they were always aristocratic and his father was usually involved in the military in one way or another. In 1919, at the beginning of his directorial career, he told an interviewer:
“My father was a count, and my mother, before she married him, was a baroness and a lady-in-waiting to the late Empress Elizabeth.”
“Then you are a count?” [asked the interviewer.]
“A ‘no-count’ is more like it,” he replied modestly. "Titles are not worth a pfennig in Austria. In any case,” he added, “I’ve been an American citizen too long to care for such baubles.” [14]It is should be noted that he did not actually become an American citizen until 1926.
Thomas Quinn Curtiss’ biography, which is essentially the “authorized” Stroheim biography, and relies almost entirely on Stroheim’s recollections, [15] gives a different account of his parentage:
He asserted that his full name was Erich Oswald Hans Carl Stroheim von Nordenwald and that his father was Frederick von Nordenwald, then serving as a major in the 6th regiment of Dragoons. His mother, née Johanna Bondy, whose brother was an Imperial Counselor, was of Czech origin; though subject to melancholia and hypochondria, she was of strong constitution and survived into her eighties."Here, it is only his mother who is aristocratic, but his father is a well-to-do fellow in the military. Stroheim’s passions for the nobility and the military were to recur in both his tales of himself and his films.
Stroheim’s parentage was actually much more prosaic. His father was Benno Stroheim, born in Gleiwitz, in Prussian Silesia. Benno was listed as a maker and seller of hats on Stroheim’s birth certificate, and he owned a hat store. His mother was indeed Johanna Bondy, of Czech origin (she was born in Prague, where she and Benno were married), but she was neither a lady-in-waiting to the Empress nor a baroness.
Curtiss’ book reports that Stroheim’s father retired from active service to try his hand at moneymaking,[17] but failed. This is a little closer to the truth – the family hat business began to falter and in went bankrupt in 1908, and it was liquidated in 1909. Another business partnership entered into by the Stroheims also went into liquidation, and Stroheim’s father died shortly afterward.
Childhood and Schooling
Stroheim created a far more impressive youth for himself than he actually had. Curtiss’ account has him playing soldiers with his younger brother Bruno until being shipped off to a preparatory boarding school for cadets. [18] There, Curtiss writes, he was a bright, if not always well-behaved student, and “a promising army career was predicted for him. Physically robust, he won honors for horsemanship and fencing and excelled as a crack shot.” [19] He was a voracious reader, and while at school he developed a system of absorbing the contents of a book “in a few hours of concentration.” [20] He graduated in 1902 as a second lieutenant.[21] Peter Noble’s biography and Universal Studios publicity duplicate this almost precisely. [22]
His childhood may well have been as Curtiss describes, but as a student, he was far from promising – Lennig tracked down the business school his parents sent him to in 1901 and looked up his records. His marks in German were “satisfactory,” but his French and English studies were not. His bookkeeping, economics, and other business skills were all poor (as his producers during his directorial career could doubtless confirm), and his written assignments received “the least possible recommendation.” Stroheim stood out in one area: he was phenomenally skilled at cutting class. For 62 of the 225 hours of absences on his record he had no excuse at all and was listed as “truant.” [23]
The Military
Stroheim’s involvement with the military was a constant theme in his tales about himself. In Curtiss’ biography, he is described graduating as a second lieutenant and going into debt to keep up the appearances expected of an officer. [24] The Curtiss version describes him being sent into the field in 1908, where he saw action during the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a courageous young officer, he lead his men courageously, and often sneaked off to a nearby Gypsy encampment. At the encampment, a fortune-teller told him that he would “soon leave Austria, cross the ocean, and find great fame in a foreign land.” [25]
When he did reach America, Stroheim’s fictional military career continued. Curtiss describes Stroheim relating how he impressed an army officer, Captain MacLean (who shares a name with the title character of a film in which Stroheim had a small part in) and who encouraged him to enlist. [26] Stroheim explained that his still-faltering English kept him from becoming an officer, but he enlisted for two years as a private.
Some time later, Curtiss’ version continues, he was offered a captaincy in the Mexican Army by President Madero himself. [27] He accepted, but when he arrived in Mexico, he was told that President Madero had been assassinated. The American consul in Mexico advised him to return immediately to the United States, which he did. [28]
According to the documentation, what actually happened was that Stroheim tried to enlist in the Austrian army in 1906. The military records in Vienna list him as 168 cm tall (five feet, six inches), and proficient at playing the violin. He was classified as “derzeit, untauglich, Schwach, Zuruckstellen” [currently unfit, weak, (and) to return to the rank of civilian]. [29]
But he did not give up – already he had the strong-willed stubbornness which would be both an asset and a hindrance in his Hollywood years. A short time later, Stroheim reapplied and managed to be accepted in the Royal and Imperial Training Regiment 1, stationed in Vienna. He entered the supply and transport division, and was commissioned as a “one-year voluntary soldier-in-training with the title Corporal” on December 23, 1906.[30]
After only four months, however, Stroheim’s conduct, performance, and skills were examined and he was classified as “invalid, incapable of bearing arms, to be discharged from the service, but capable of work as a civilian.” [31] He tried again the following year, but was again classified as “unsuitable for military service, unable to bear arms.” [32]
In the United States, Stroheim’s military record shows that he enlisted in the New York National Guard January 30, 1911, and was “dropped” two months later on March 27, 1911. [33] His brief acceptance by the Mexican army has never been proven, and is most likely as fanciful as his lieutenancy in the Austrian army.
Emigration
Unlike Stroheim’s military record, which can be fairly easily checked, his reasons for emigrating to the United States are cloaked with mystery. Stroheim’s explanation, as presented in Curtiss’ book, is that he had gone very deeply into debt living as an officer, and he entered into an unwise contract with a loan shark. The lender insisted on getting his money immediately, and Stroheim’s uncle paid off the loan on the condition that Stroheim immediately leave for America. [34]
Stroheim’s cousin, Emil Feldmar, said in an interview in the early sixties that he thought there was some secret cause for Stroheim’s sudden departure, which was otherwise “a perfect enigma.” [35] It is possible that with his failures in school and the military, and his family’s bankruptcy, he may have felt there was no other option open to him. America was a clean slate, a chance to start anew. And indeed, Stroheim rechristened himself when he arrived at Ellis Island, where he informed the emigration officers his name was “Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim.”
Apart from the few official records of his brief military service and his marriages and divorce, there is very little documentation about Stroheim’s early years in the United States. In his later years, when he talked about his adventures leading up to his first big job in Hollywood, directing and starring in “Blind Husbands”, he spun yarns which may well have contained some grains of truth. Lennig’s biography attempts to sort the wheat from the chaff, but it is a difficult task.
Conclusion
It has been suggested before that Stroheim harbored self-destructive impulses, and his history certainly bears that out. His willingness to let the public mix his screen persona with his real personality, his conflicts with his producers, and his fabrications about his past all support the idea. Anita Loos, one of his few good friends, felt he had “The ‘Prussian’ trait of loving to be hated.” [36] Stroheim’s refusal to be reasonable after his first few films doomed his artistic efforts to the editing shears, and one cannot help wondering why – after all, his first two films were made on budget and on time, and at normal feature length.
His creation of himself, of his past, stood the test of time only through luck. Had his friends or family from Austria chosen to do so, they could have destroyed his careful back story. A check of Army records in New York would have done serious damage to it as well. Stroheim must have known how easily he could have been discovered – in spite of his school records he was a highly intelligent man.
Whatever his motivation for remaking himself, he was certainly skilled at it. And no wonder – he was a gifted screenwriter, and he turned that talent to constructing his past as he wished it might have been. One can look at it as his greatest creation, for it was not edited by other hands. For once, he had complete artistic control.
Bibliography
Curtiss, Thomas Quinn. Von Stroheim. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971.
Finler, Joel W. Stroheim. London: Movie Magazine Ltd., 1967.
Koszarski, Richard. The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Lennig, Arthur. Stroheim Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 2000.
Noble, Peter. Hollywood Scapegoat: The Biography of Erich von Stroheim. New York: Arno Press, 1972