Helmut Dantine, Acting - KorPlix:Korean Person Archives

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Helmut Dantine
Acting

Helmut Dantine
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1918-10-07,Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]
Gender
Male
Biography
Helmut Dantine was an Austrian-American actor who often played Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. His best-known performances are perhaps the German pilot in Mrs. Miniver, and the desperate refugee in Casablanca, who tries gambling to obtain travel visa money for himself and his wife. As his acting career waned, he turned to producing. Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles. His relatives thought he would go into business, but he became interested in theater. He began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse, while running two gas stations in order to pay his expenses. Dantine was spotted by a talent scout from Warner Bros, who signed him to a contract. Dantine had uncredited parts in International Squadron and To Be or Not to Be, before his first credited role in MGM's Mrs. Miniver, playing a downed German pilot captured by the title character (played by Greer Garson). It was a huge hit, and Dantine received much positive attention from being in the film. In August 1942, Warners signed him to a new acting contract. The studio kept him busy with roles in the World War II films, The Pied Piper, Desperate Journey fighting Errol Flynn, and The Navy Comes Through. He had a sympathetic role in Casablanca, as a young refugee trying and failing to earn money via gambling. Warners begin to give Dantine more sizeable roles in their "A" films, Watch on the Rhine, Edge of Darkness, playing a Nazi officer, again fighting Errol Flynn, and Mission to Moscow, playing a sympathetic Russian. Dantine's good looks caused him to receive a lot of fan mail and, in the words of one profile, "the studio began to realize it had something else besides a Hollywood Hitlerite on its hands". Warners announced they had bought Night Action by Norman Krasna as a vehicle for Dantine, but the film appears not to have been made. Instead, he had a large role playing the villain in Northern Pursuit (1943), as a Nazi running loose in northern Canada fighting Errol Flynn again. Warner Bros. later cast him in a sympathetic role in Passage to Marseille, and he was one of several stars in Hollywood Canteen. In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow", picked Dantine at number 10. Warners gave him a sympathetic lead in Hotel Berlin, as the leader of the German underground. He was once again a Nazi on-the-run in Escape in the Desert, a remake of The Petrified Forest. His last role for Warners was in the film noir, Shadow of a Woman. He then left the studio. As his acting career wound down, he became a vice-president of Hollywood mogul Joseph Schenck's company, Schenck Enterprises, in 1959; Schenck was his wife's uncle. He later went to work as producer with Robert L. Lippert Productions and then as president of Hand Enterprises Inc. Among Dantine's later screen appearances, there were three films for which he was the executive producer: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Killer Elite, both directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wilby Conspiracy. He was also in The Fifth Musketeer and Tarzan the Apeman. On 2 May 1982, Helmut Dantine died in Beverly Hills from a heart attack at age 63. According to one obituary, "He specialized in portrayals of Nazis, sometimes as the handsome but icy SS sadist battling Allied heroes, sometimes as a sympathetic German soldier forced, against his better judgment, to fight".

Filmography

8.139

Casablanca
1943-01-15

7.1

Mrs. Miniver
1942-07-03

To Be or Not to Be

7.804

To Be or Not to Be
1942-03-06

Operation Crossbow

6.7

Operation Crossbow
1965-04-01

The Story of Mankind

4.429

The Story of Mankind
1957-11-08

Whispering City

4.8

Whispering City
1947-11-20

Shadow of a Woman

4.5

Shadow of a Woman
1946-09-14

Hollywood Canteen

7.276

Hollywood Canteen
1944-12-15

6.24

Call Me Madam
1953-03-25

Passage to Marseille

6.591

Passage to Marseille
1944-03-11

Northern Pursuit

6.19

Northern Pursuit
1943-11-07

Edge of Darkness

6.2

Edge of Darkness
1943-04-09

Stranger from Venus

5.229

Stranger from Venus
1954-08-23

Escape in the Desert

9

Escape in the Desert
1945-05-01

6.133

Hotel Berlin
1945-03-02

The File on Devlin

8

The File on Devlin
1969-11-21

8

Fraulein
1958-06-08

Watch on the Rhine

6.858

Watch on the Rhine
1943-08-27

The Killer Elite

5.796

The Killer Elite
1975-12-19

6.929

The Pied Piper
1942-08-21

6.5

Tempest
1958-12-01

7.469

Escape
1940-11-01

6.6

War and Peace
1956-08-21

7.5

Guerrilla Girl
1953-01-23

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

7.1

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
1974-08-01

Alexander the Great

6

Alexander the Great
1956-03-28

The Fifth Musketeer

4.9

The Fifth Musketeer
1979-04-06

The Wilby Conspiracy

6.433

The Wilby Conspiracy
1975-02-01

Hell on Devil's Island

7.5

Hell on Devil's Island
1957-08-04

Mission to Moscow

5.738

Mission to Moscow
1943-04-29

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel

7.333

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel
1957-03-04

Desperate Journey

6.1

Desperate Journey
1942-09-26

0

Clipper Ship
1957-04-04

Playhouse 90: The Hiding Place

0

Playhouse 90: The Hiding Place
1960-03-22

5.385

Studio One
1948-11-07

7.788

Night Gallery
1970-12-16

General Electric Theater

6.833

General Electric Theater
1953-02-01

Hallmark Hall of Fame

8.75

Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951-12-24

Run for Your Life

7.143

Run for Your Life
1965-09-13

8

The Rogues
1964-09-13

The Millionaire

5.75

The Millionaire
1955-01-19

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

7.2

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
1951-10-05

7.556

The Thin Man
1957-09-20

3.833

Climax!
1954-10-07

5.167

Sugarfoot
1957-09-17

5.083

Suspense
1949-01-06

6

Lights Out
1949-07-19

8

Studio 57
1954-09-21

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

7.2

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
1951-10-05

5

Medical Story
1975-09-04