Gründgens, Gustav

Gründgens, Gustav (1899–1963), German actor and director, who made his first appearances in Hamburg and from 1928 until the end of the Second World War was at various theatres in Berlin, where he directed and acted in a wide range of classical plays. Tall, blond, and extremely good-looking, he made a striking Hamlet at Elsinore in 1938. He was also much admired in plays by Shaw. After a brief period in a Soviet internment camp he was released and went to Düsseldorf, where he remained until 1955, making it one of the outstanding theatre centres of the Federal Republic. He spent his last years in Hamburg, where he added many modern works to the repertory, including Brecht's Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe (1959) and John Osborne's The Entertainer (1957). He revived both parts of Goethe's Faust in 1957/8, playing Mephistopheles, the role in which he had first attracted attention in 1922. This was received with acclaim and he was negotiating for it to be seen in South America when he died, apparently by his own hand, in Manila.