Hermann Vallentin

Biography

Berlin, 24 May 1872: the city’s streets were still gas-lit when Hermann Vallentin first drew breath. By the flicker of kerosene and, later, the glare of arc lamps, he learned to turn silence into character. Audiences first noticed him as the fiery young Schiller in the 1923 biopic, followed by the doomed grandeur of Marie Antoinette’s court in 1922, but it was his 1931 turn as the bewildered, stubborn mayor in The Captain from Köpenick that fixed his face in cinema history. When war scattered Europe’s talent, Vallentin crossed continents and settled in the young city of Tel Aviv, where he lived until 18 September 1948, leaving behind a reel of shadows that still stride across German screens.