Harry Piel
actor, director, writer
- Birth name:
- Heinrich Piel
- Born:
- 1892-07-12, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Died:
- 1963-03-27, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
- Professions:
- actor, director, writer
Biography
Harry Piel entered the world on 12 July 1892 in Düsseldorf, Germany, and spent the next seven decades turning pulp-fiction thrills into silver-screen lightning. Beginning with Diplomaten in 1918, he kept cameras racing through exotic skylines and shadowy corridors, culminating in the cliff-hanging serial Menschen und Masken, 1. Teil – Der falsche Emir (1924) and the proto-sci-fi spectacle Der Herr der Welt (1934). Off-screen he teamed up twice at the altar—first with actress Dary Holm, later with Johanna Präder—while audiences knew him simply as “the dynamite director with a stuntman’s grin.” His final curtain fell on 27 March 1963 in Munich, but the explosions, chases, and daredevil smiles he pioneered still sizzle in every action reel that followed.
