Curt Goetz
Curt Goetz was a notable German actor, playwright, and director, born in Mainz, Germany, in 1888. Initially aspiring to a medical career, financial constraints led him to pursue acting, studying under Emanuel Reicher in Berlin. By his early twenties, he had established himself in various theaters, including the City Theater in Rostock and the Lessing-Theater in Berlin. Influenced by the director Max Reinhardt, Goetz became known for writing comedies that featured strong roles for actors, often crafting one-act plays to showcase his talents and those of his second wife, actress Valérie von Martens.
In the 1920s, he gained prominence with the success of his mystery play "Hokuspokus," allowing him to create his own theatrical company. During the rise of the Nazis, Goetz maintained his career by avoiding political involvement, ultimately relocating to New York City in 1939 and later Hollywood. Despite facing challenges in the American film industry, he continued to write and revamp earlier works. After World War II, Goetz returned to Switzerland, achieving recognition for his contributions to theater, including selling his play "Prätorius" to Hollywood. He is celebrated for his mastery in drawing-room one-act comedies and left behind a legacy that includes published memoirs and a distinguished place in German dramatic history.
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Curt Goetz
Author
- Born: November 17, 1888
- Birthplace: Mainz, Germany
- Died: September 12, 1960
- Place of death: Kanton St. Gallen, Switzerland
Biography
Born in Mainz, Germany, Curt Goetz was the son of Bernard Alexander Heinrich Goetz, a Swiss lawyer, and his wife, Selma Rocco Goetz, a German. After his father’s death in 1889, Goetz’s mother took the family to Halle, where she managed a nursing home. Like his paternal grandfather, Goetz planned on a medical career, but he left school after the tenth grade because funds were short. He went to Berlin, where he studied acting with Emanuel Reicher. By the age of twenty he had become an actor in the City Theater in Rostock, and the next year he joined the Intimes Theater in Nuremberg. In 1911, he played at Berlin’s Little Theater and moved to the Lessing-Theater in 1913. He married Erna Nitter in 1914, but the couple divorced just three years later.
During the 1920’s, he worked at the German Theater in Berlin and was influenced by director Max Reinhardt, who later came to the United States and became a noted film director (a course that Goetz later attempted to copy). In addition to acting and directing on stage and in film, he also wrote comedies in the manner of Noel Coward to provide good roles for actors. In fact, he wrote some one-act plays, his specialty, to provide roles for himself and his second wife, actress Valérie von Martens. In 1925 he moved to Merligen, Switzerland (he was a Swiss citizen). The success of Hokuspokus (1927), a mystery, enabled him to created his own theatrical company to perform his own plays. When the Nazis took over in the 1930’s, he was able to continue working because he stayed out of politics, and in 1938 he produced Napoleon ist an allem schuld, in which he served as writer, director, and star.
Like Reinhardt, he eventually left Germany, and after his arrival in New York City in 1939 he went to Hollywood. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer employed him as a writer (he worked without credit on Cheaper by the Dozen and Two-Faced Woman), but he was unsuccessful, perhaps because of his lack of familiarity with both English idioms and the practice of working with other writers. Disappointed with his film career, he bought a chicken farm in Van Nuys, California, but he continued to write, revamping some of his earlier successes. Das Haus in Montevideo became It’s a Gift (1945), a film with him and his wife as leads. When his plays were unsuccessful, he wrote fiction, publishing two short novels.
He and his wife returned to Switzerland and to filmmaking after the war. In 1951 he sold his play Prätorius to Hollywood, where it became People Will Talk. That same year he also translated several pieces by Noël Coward, whose works were akin in spirit and wit to his own earlier one-act plays. In 1955 he moved to Schaan, Liechtenstein, and three years later published three one-act plays, was made a member of the German Academy of Arts, and was appointed professor by Prince Franz Joseph II. He died in Switzerland but was buried in Berlin. After his death his memoirs were published. In dramatic history he is best known as a master of drawing-room one-act comedies.