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"Before seeing Hollywood, during and after, he still remains in my opinion, The director!" - Sergei Eisenstein

Erich Oswald Stroheim was born in Vienna on September 22, 1885. When entering America in 1909, he presented himself to Ellis Island immigration officials as Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim, a descendent of a noble military family. In reality he was the son of a Jewish hat-maker and grew up in the ghetto part of Vienna. Through his entire life he maintained the "von" in his name and claimed he was from nobility and a devout lifelong Catholic.

Erich set sail from Bremen, Germany on November 16, 1909 to America aboard the German steamer Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. When he arrived in America on November 25th he registered as Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim.

After a short time in New York Erich took a room on 113 West 127th Street in New York from Mrs. Agnes Jones who had a daughter named May. Erich and May developed a romantic relationship. Evenings he took her to a beer emporium were they could dance. In this exhibition, through newly discovered postcards to May Jones, we develop a more complete understanding about Erich's early days in America.

"I arrived in November 1909 in the United States. A few days later I took out my 'First Paper' the 'Declaration of Intention' to become an American citizen ... I had neither relatives nor friends who might have assisted me in finding a position I could have filled... and my funds were too limited [...]. I had no commercial schooling of any sort."

"In 1912 I went to California...where I earned a living in turn as agent of fashion-journals, fly paper-salesman.assistant section forman for the Southern Pacific in Oakland...Track walker for the Mount Tamalpais R.R. in Mill Valley. Deputy Sheriff...Caretaker if Muir Woods...riding master and stable attendant at the Crown-City-Livery in Pasadena ...From there I drifted to Los Angeles where I accidentally was brought into the(D.W.GRIFFITH) Griffith studio by an acquaintance...where the Master was filming "The Birth Of A Nation". I began to work now and then as "extra" for Griffith as well as for other directors...later I finally plated bit parts...until I graduated finally as a "stock player" of small parts...not having favored by nature good looks I naturally was regulated to play villain...Much later I was destined to impersonate the "villainest villains" to ever cross stage or screen...which earned me the title "THE MAN YOU TO HATE" Erich Von Stroheim

Erich von Stroheim arrived in Hollywood in 1914 and secured work as an extra in the movies. He had had everybody believe that he had attended a fine military school in Vienna and had been a Cavalry Officer in the Austrian Army. In Hollywood he worked with D.W. Griffith on INTOLERANCE (1916) and HEARTS OF THE WORLD (1918); in the latter movie he acted, and also served as a military technical adviser. He developed as an actor known for his menacing performances as evil German officers and cads. Publicity proclaimed him as "The man you love to hate."

In 1919 von Stroheim wrote and directed his first feature for Universal, BLIND HUSBANDS; a great box-office success, it was considered the wittiest and most sophisticated sex drama to ever be presented on an American screen. His next films for Universal were THE DEVIL'S PASS KEY (1920) and FOOLISH WIVES (1922); the latter movie was the first million-dollar-budgeted picture and became a box-office triumph. However, the cost of the production and the length of time von Stroheim took to shoot it earned him a notorious reputation for being an out-of-control director. Universal executives ordered FOOLISH WIVES to be cut a third in length before its release, starting a practice that followed most of the director's future features.

Von Stroheim's next feature for Universal was MERRY-GO-ROUND (1923). He was fired from that picture by the studio production head Irving Thalberg, who said that the director was over budget and replaced him with Rupert Julian. One of the reasons von Stroheim went over budget was his obsessive attention to detail: he required that the actors drink real champagne and wear underwear that was made of silk, like the characters they portrayed would.

In 1923 von Stroheim started production on his adaptation of Frank Norris's McTeague for the Goldwyn Producing Corporation. For nine months he shot entirely on location in San Francisco and Death Valley. He presented his first cut of the film, which was titled GREED, to a small audience at what was by then Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The audience that witnessed this version declared it was the greatest movie of all time. But Irving Thalberg, his old nemesis from Universal who was now head of production at the new M-G-M Studios, ordered to have the picture cut down to a little over two hours. This was considered to be the greatest loss in cinema history.

"At the time when I began my work the slogan of the Goldwyn Co. was 'The author and the play are the thing,' and I was given plein pouvoirs to make the picture as the author might have wanted it. But when Goldwyn Co. became M.G.M (Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer) (that happened during the time I was cutting the film) the new firm (with Irving G. Thalberg as new general manager) did not give a hoop about...the author...The new slogan was 'the producer is the thing!' L.B. Mayer, the head of the company made it his business to prove to me that I was a small employee in a very large pants-factory (pants that incidentally had to fit grand-father, father and child)...I had set out with the idea to make the picture in two parts. Ten or twelve reels each with time for dinner in between (still a long time before Eugene O'Neill executed this idea). When I got through making the film as written and okayed by Goldwyn I found myself with forty two reels, that necessitated, even if I wanted two parts, to cut half of it out, which I accomplished myself. When I had arrived at twenty-four reels, I could not, to save my soul, cut another foot. But the new company insisted on cutting it down. Unknown to them I sent one print to my friend Rex Ingram who worked at that time in New York and begged him to cut it, if he could. He returned it in eighteen reels...having accomplished for me the impossible. He sent me a telegram: 'If you cut one more foot I'll never speak to you again.' I showed the telegram to Mr. Mayer but he told me that he did not give a damn about Rex Ingram or me...and that the picture must be cut to ten reels. It was given to a cutter at thirty dollars a week who never had read the book nor the script, and on whose mind was nothing but a hat.... No matter if I would talk to you three weeks steadily could I possibly describe even to a small degree the heartache I suffered through the mutilation of my sincere work."

In 1999 I reconstructed GREED - using 650 stills and the existing footage - to a four-hour version for Turner Classic Movies. It was an outstanding success and played festivals around the world to great acclaim.

After GREED, in 1925 von Stroheim directed the Franz Lehár operetta THE MERRY WIDOW for M-G-M. It was the most successful box-office draw of 1925, but von Stroheim would never work at M-G-M again.

In 1927 von Stroheim made THE WEDDING MARCH for Paramount Pictures. This film was shot in two parts; the only known print of its second installment, called THE HONEYMOON, was destroyed in the 1950s in a fire in Paris. THE WEDDING MARCH was a moderate success in the United States; its second part, THE HONEYMOON, was only shown in Europe and never had an American release. After the completion of THE WEDDING MARCH von Stroheim started production on a film produced by Joseph Kennedy and Gloria Swanson called QUEEN KELLY. This film was not completed; with my new findings I have discovered, in von Stroheim's own words, his reasons for not being allowed to complete the film. The last film von Stroheim ever directed was a sound film for Fox Studios titled WALKING DOWN BROADWAY (1932). The studio was unhappy with its look at the dark side of life; it was re-shot by director Alfred Werker and released as HELLO, SISTER! in 1933.

This was the lowest point in the professional life of Erich von Stroheim. Between 1932 and 1936 he worked as a screenwriter and actor. In 1937 he appeared in Jean Renoir's LA GRANDE ILLUSION as a German officer: with this part he became a big star in France and moved to Paris.

Returning to American at the start of the second war he was no longer popular as an actor for the screen and found roles hard to get. As re he remembered to Peter Noble"One day I read in a criticism of a New York stage play called "Arsenic and Old Lace" which was suppose to be a great hit. The producers were looking for a actor to play the part Boris Karloff had created on Broadway, in the company which was to be sent on tour through the United States... I played the part Jonathan Brewster for two solid years... One and a half years on the road, touching 57 cities (Chicago, 3 months, Boston, 3 months, Philadelphia 1 month and other everything from 2 weeks to "one night stands") and finally six months on Broadway taking over when Karloff went to the coast to make a picture. My experience as stage actor would fill a book, A sad book. Just when I got used to three lazy life of legitimate actor that means, sleeping during the day, working eating and drinking during the night I got a call from Hollywood to play in Billy Wilder's forth coming paramount production."

Erich appeared in Billy Wilder's directorial debut FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (1943), in which he portrayed Field Marshal Rommel. It was at that time that Wilder said to von Stroheim "Imagine little me directing you; you were ten years ahead of your time." Von Stroheim firmly replied "Twenty!" During the war years in America he mostly appeared in B pictures and toured with a national stage company of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. In 1950 he appeared in Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

After SUNSET BOULEVARD Erich Von Stroheim returned to France hoping once again after the films success to have a chance to direct, this was never to be. He lived with Denise Vernac on an estate in Maurepus thirty minutes outside Paris that she had bought from an inheritance that she received from her father. He continued to act in films but was hampered by failing health. During his last years he received visitors like Billy Wilder, Gloria Swanson, Anita Loos, Thomas Quinn Curtis, Preston Sturgis, Rene Clair, and Jean Renoir. Right before his death he received the French Legion of Honor. Erich Von Stroheim died at home May 12,1957. The day of his funeral Robert Bresson and Jacqueline Keener were present. Before the coffin was closed Bresson pined on Von Stroheim a medal that was awarded his father during the First World War; Jacqueline Keener then closed the coffin. As his funeral precession preceded from the home in Maurepus down a rainy country road, dozens of cows from a nearby farm watched as a true icon of early Hollywood was laid to rest.

What I have tried to present in this exhibition is fragments that help give credible insight in the life of one of silent cinemas greatest director's life

`Rick Schmidlin
Guest Curator