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Otto Preminger was an Austrian-American director, producer and actor who made more than 35 films in Hollywood. He is known for his film noir mysteries, his adaptations of popular novels and stage works, and his challenges to censorship.
Otto Preminger was a director, producer and actor who made his mark in Hollywood and on Broadway. He was known for his innovative and controversial films such as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus and The Cardinal.
- January 1, 1
- New York City, New York, USA
- January 1, 1
- 1.82 m
- Overview
- Early work
- Laura and costume dramas
Otto Preminger (born December 5, 1905, Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary [now Vyzhnytsya, Ukraine]—died April 23, 1986, New York, New York, U.S.) Austrian-born American director who defied Hollywood’s Production Code with a series of controversial films—notably The Moon Is Blue (1953), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and Anatomy of a Murder (1...
Preminger, who was the son of the attorney general of the Austrian Empire, earned a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1928. However, by that time, he was already active in the theatre, and he subsequently studied acting with the legendary Max Reinhardt. He then opened his own stock companies, Die Komodie Theatre and Die Schauspielhaus. In 1931 Preminger directed the German-language film, Die grosse Liebe (The Great Love), and in 1933 the aging Reinhardt named him producer-director of Vienna’s renowned Theatre in der Josefstadt.
In 1935 Preminger, who was Jewish, immigrated to the United States; he became a U.S. citizen in 1943. He staged the Broadway play Libel (1935–36) before making his way to Hollywood. His first American movies were two B-films at Twentieth Century-Fox: Under Your Spell (1936) and Danger—Love at Work (1937). After studio executive Darryl F. Zanuck fired him early in the filming of Kidnapped (1938), Preminger returned to the stage. On Broadway he directed several plays, notably Margin for Error (1939–40), in which he cast himself as a Nazi. With his Austrian accent, imposing build, and intimidating persona, Nazi characters became Preminger’s specialty. He also taught stage direction at Yale University from 1938 to 1941.
Preminger was invited back to Hollywood in 1942 to act in Irving Pichel’s Academy Award-nominated The Pied Piper, again portraying a Nazi. Then he was asked to re-create his stage role in the film version of Margin for Error (1943), and he agreed on the condition that he could also direct. However, it was a poorly received film, as was the tepid Jeanne Crain soap opera In the Meantime, Darling (1944).
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Preminger then helmed Laura (1944), a film noir classic that established his reputation as a talented but tough director—his volatile temper earned him the nicknames “Otto the Terrible” and “Otto the Ogre”—and that began his career-long exploration of human obsession. He originally was set to produce and direct the film, which was based on a Vera Caspary novel, but Zanuck handed the reins to Rouben Mamoulian. However, Zanuck disliked the early rushes, and he fired Mamoulian and reinstated Preminger. The result is one of the great films of the 1940s, with Dana Andrews as an implacable police detective who falls in love with a murder victim (Gene Tierney) during the course of his investigation. Preminger received his first Academy Award nomination for best director, and Joseph LaShelle won an Oscar for his cinematography.
The commercial and critical success of Laura gave Preminger leverage, and Zanuck signed him to a long-term contract. A Royal Scandal (1945) had been started by Ernst Lubitsch, but, when he fell ill, Preminger completed it. The film, a biography of Catherine the Great as portrayed by Tallulah Bankhead, was the first of many Preminger-directed costume pictures. Next was Fallen Angel (1945), a first-rate noir. Andrews was cast as a gold digger who marries a rich socialite (Alice Faye) and then finds that he is accused of murdering his waitress mistress (Linda Darnell). Centennial Summer (1946) was a bland if colourful musical set at the 1876 exposition in Philadelphia, with Crain, Darnell, and Cornel Wilde. In Forever Amber (1947) Darnell portrayed an ambitious 17th-century woman who overcomes her humble beginnings through a series of affairs. Because of the Production Code restrictions, the film captured little of the eroticism of the best seller by Kathleen Winsor, but it was still a box-office hit.
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- Michael Barson
Aug 25, 2023 · The greatest films of Otto Preminger stand as peaks for a certain kind of intellectually probing Hollywood entertainment. This prolific, intimidating and culturally voracious producer-director achieved auteur status not, like Hitchcock, through a mastery of suspense – indeed, Preminger’s fêted noir Laura (1944) unfolds instead with a ...
Learn about the life and career of Otto Preminger, a versatile and controversial director who worked in theater, film and TV. Find out his birth name, nickname, family, trademarks, trivia, quotes and more.
- December 5, 1905
- April 23, 1986
May 23, 2018 · Learn about the life and career of Otto Preminger, a pioneering film director and producer who defied Hollywood conventions and censors. Explore his early years in Austria, his Broadway and Hollywood successes, and his controversial films such as Laura, The Man With the Golden Arm, and Exodus.
Otto Preminger was an Austrian-born Hollywood director who made over 35 films, including film noir classics and controversial adaptations of novels and plays. He was nominated for two Oscars and also acted in some of his own movies.
