Siegfried Breuer

Biography

Debonair Viennese thespian Siegfried Breuer specialized in portraying elegant, charming rogues and profligates. The son of a Wagnerian singer, he was trained from 1924 as an actor at Vienna's Academy for Music and the Performing Arts, studying alongside Paula Wessely and Käthe Gold. He performed on the stage in Berlin under the direction of Max Reinhardt in 'The Prince of Homburg', his first leading role. In 1935, he became a member of the ensemble cast of the Deutsches Theater. From the late 1930's, Breuer was increasingly in demand for movie roles and began to develop his particular style of suave, but shifty, bon vivant. He gave his best performance in Gustav Ucicky's classic Der Postmeister (1940), as Minskij, and in Helmut Käutner's Romanze in Moll (1943). He was occasionally seen in operatic parts which required that special Viennese charm, as in Immortal Waltz (1939) and the remake of Die Fledermaus (1946). Carol Reed cast him (for added continental flavour) alongside several other noted Austrian players in The Third Man (1949). His part, as Popescu, was quite small but integral to the progression of the story. A chain smoker, Breuer died young -- aged just 47 -- from complications due to pneumonia. In that short life, he was married six times. His wives included the Austrian star actress Maria Andergast.