Otz Tollen

Biography

Berlin, 9 April 1882: Otz Tollen enters the world in the pulsating heart of the young Kaiserreich. Within three decades he will stride across flickering screens and behind them, guiding nightmares into being. His silhouette haunts the Expressionist dusk of 1920, first as the obsessive archaeologist in *Der Schädel der Pharaonentochter*, then as the unseen hand orchestrating the asylum-bedlam of *Die Schreckensnacht im Irrenhaus Ivoy*. Six years later he trades shadows for spotlights, coaxing fragile women down ruinous paths in *Wenn Menschen irren. Frauen auf Irrwegen*. Talkies arrive, wars ignite, empires collapse; Tollen’s name fades from marquees yet never leaves the city that birthed him. On 19 July 1965, in the quiet Wilmersdorf quarter of a divided Berlin, the curtain rings down on the last act of the actor-turned-auteur who once made Weimar audiences gasp.