Maximilian Schell

Biography

Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was a Swiss-Austrian actor, director and screenwriter, best known for winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg. He worked across German-language theatre, television and Hollywood, and became one of the most widely admired German-speaking performers of his generation.

Born in Vienna into a family of artists, Schell was the son of Margarethe Noé von Nordberg, an actress who ran an acting school, and Hermann Ferdinand Schell, a poet and playwright who also owned a pharmacy. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, the family fled to Zurich, where Schell grew up. His father had doubts about an acting career, and as a boy Schell hoped to become a painter, a musician or a playwright. He studied philosophy and art history in Zurich, Munich and Basel, served briefly in the Swiss Army, and eventually chose acting over an academic path.

His screen debut came in the German anti-war drama Children, Mothers and a General (1955), and he soon became associated with roles as disillusioned young officers. He moved to Hollywood for The Young Lions (1958), alongside Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. His defence attorney in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), a part he had first played on television, brought him the Oscar and marked a milestone for a German-speaking actor after the Second World War. He resisted being typecast as a Nazi-era figure and appeared in international productions such as Topkapi and Krakatoa, East of Java, and he returned again and again to Hamlet on stage.

As a director, his best-known work is the documentary Marlene (1984). Dietrich refused to appear on camera, so Schell recreated her surroundings on a set and combined recorded voice with archive footage. The result angered the actress and ended their friendship for a time, though they reconciled a year later as the film won praise and an Oscar nomination. He later directed My Sister Maria (2002), a portrait of his sister Maria Schell. In the following decades he worked mainly in television and theatre, appearing on Broadway and at London's Old Vic.

His legacy rests on his double role as performer and creator, bridging European art cinema and large American productions. He died in Innsbruck on 1 February 2014, after what his agent described as a sudden and serious illness.

Key films

• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), as the defence attorney that won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
• The Young Lions (1958), his Hollywood debut as a German officer.
• The Man in the Glass Booth (1975), a role that earned him an Oscar nomination.
• Julia (1977), as a man resisting Nazism in 1930s Germany.
• A Bridge Too Far (1977), as a German officer in the Arnhem campaign.
• Marlene (1984), the documentary he directed about Marlene Dietrich.