Andor Szakács

Biography

Born under the Habsburg moon in 1865, Andor Szakács first drew breath in Étfalva—today’s Dumbrava, Transylvania—where the Târnava River murmurs between Romanian hills. By the time flickering nickelodeons began to eclipse village stages, he had already traded rural quiet for greasepaint, stepping before the camera as cinema itself was learning to speak. Audiences remember his cool restraint in the gambling thriller *Baccarat* (1919), his smoldering resolve in *Havasi Magdolna* (1916), and the haunted eyes he lent *A megbélyegzett* (1917). On 21 March 1924, the curtain fell for the last time in Cluj, Romania, closing a life that had spanned silent film’s infancy and helped give Hungarian cinema its earliest pulse.