Mathias Wieman

Mathias Wieman (Carl Heinrich Franz Mathias Wieman; 23 June 1902 – 3 December 1969) was a German stage-performer, silent-and-sound motion picture actor.
Life and career
Early life
Wieman was born in Osnabrück, the only son of Carl Philipp Anton Wieman and his wife Louise. Raised in Osnabrück, Wiesbaden and Berlin, where he studied four terms of philosophy, history of art and languages, Wieman wanted to actually become an airplane technical designer and flier. He started his acting career on the stage in Berlin under the direction of Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater. In the early 1920s, he was a member of the Holtorf-Truppe, a stock theater group that included future director Veit Harlan. His fellow stage actors included his future wife, Erika Meingast, Marlene Dietrich, Dora Gerson and Max Schreck (the vampire in Nosferatu). Later he began working in silent and sound films; he landed supporting roles in Assassination, Queen Louise and Land Without Women. In 1930, along with Leni Riefenstahl, he appeared in Storm over Mont Blanc, and in 1932 he played the lead in Riefenstahl's The Blue Light.
At the height of his film career, during the decade of the 1930s, Wieman acted in such productions as Man Without a Name, L'Atlantide, The Countess of Monte Cristo, Fräulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen, The Rider on the White Horse, Victoria, Patriots, and Togger.
In 1936 Wieman produced the Frankenburger Würfelspiel of the Nazi playwright Eberhard Wolfgang Möller in association with the 1936 Summer Olympics and the inauguration of the Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne, and also played the Black Knight.
He also had an international success with his appearance in The Eternal Mask. The movie was awarded with the American National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Film in the United States in 1937 (National Board of Review Awards 1937). The film was also nominated for an award at the Venice Film Festival. Also in 1937, Wieman was made Staatsschauspieler, an honorary title bestowed by the German government and the highest honour attainable by an actor in Germany.
1940s and after
Wieman was classed as "persona non grata" by Joseph Goebbels, this greatly reduced his activity. He acted in the following movies in the 1940s: Ich klage an, Her Other Self, Paracelsus, Dreaming and How Do We Tell Our Children?. After the failed 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler happened in 1944, Mathias and his wife Erika helped the family of Count Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg. This assistance is detailed by Charlotte von der Schulenburg in the book Courageous Hearts: Women and the Anti-Hitler Plot of 1944
(Dorothee Von Meding, Berghahn Books, 1997).
After World War II he was able to work more intensively in the film business again, normally in support roles. To his fairly well known work belongs No Greater Love, As Long as You're Near Me, The Last Summer, Ripening Youth, The Girl and the Legend, and opposite Ingrid Bergman in Roberto Rossellini's Fear. Two of the films Mathias starred in were in competition at the Cannes Film Festival: In 1952, No Greater Love; and in 1954, As Long as You're Near Me.
Wieman also made many records (LPs) of classic stories where he would narrate the story accompanied by orchestral music. One example is Peter und der Wolf with Mathias and the Berlin Philharmonic in 1950 conducted by Fritz Lehmann and the Orchestre National de France in 1962 conducted by Lorin Maazel. Another example is Mathias Wiemans kleine Diskothek.
In 1992 Deutsche Grammophon issued a commemorative set of CDs in honour of the 100th anniversary of Wieman's birth: Für Kenner & Kinder.
Stage work
On stage, Wieman appeared in a number of productions including, Goethe's Faust, Pygmalion (play) by George Bernard Shaw, the most famous play of Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and in Bertolt Brecht's In The Jungle of Cities (Im Dickicht der Städte).
His many friends included such diverse people as Hanna Reitsch, Lida Baarova, Hans Fallada, Anny Ondra, and Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg.
Later life
After World War II, Wieman moved to Switzerland with his wife, stage actress Erika Meingast, there in 1969 he died of cancer. Mathias and his wife Erika (died in 1972) were cremated and the ashes buried in the Wieman family plot in the Johannesfriedhof cemetery in Osnabrück.
Honours
In 1958, his hometown of Osnabrück awarded him the prestigious Justus-Möser-Medaille for his achievements in acting on stage and screen.
And in 1965, Wieman received the Bambi Award.
Selected filmography
A Free People (1925)
Potsdam (1927)
Der Sohn der Hagar (1927) as Dr. Friedlieb
Out of the Mist (1927) as Grigori
Mata Hari (1927) as Grigori
Queen Louise (1927) as King Frederick William III
Assassination (1927) as Irrsinniger
The Merry Farmer (1927) as son Stephan Reuther
The Runaway Girl (1928) as Vladimir Pekoff, ein Komponist
Under the Lantern (1928) as Hans Grote
Diary of a Coquette (1929) as Arzt
Land Without Women (1929) as American Physician
Love's Carnival (1930) as Hans Rudorff - Leutnant
Storm over Mont Blanc (1930) as Walter Petersen
The Golden Anchor (1932) as Marcus sein Sohn
The Blue Light (1932) as Vigo
The Countess of Monte Cristo (1932) as Stephan Riehl, Journalist
L'Atlantide (1932) as Ivar Torstenson
Man Without a Name (1932) as Dr. Alfred Sander
Anna and Elizabeth (1933) as Mathias Testa
Fräulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1933) as Benno Karden
The Love Hotel (1933) as Klaus Petermann
The Rider on the White Horse (1934) as Hauke Haien
Achtung! Wer kennt diese Frau? (1934) as Artur von Bavro
The Lost Valley (1934) as René von Eisten
Little Dorrit (1934) as Arthur Clennam
Suburban Cabaret (1935) as Josef Kernthaler, Bauzeichner
The Eternal Mask (1935) as Dr. Dumartin
Victoria (1935) as Johannes
Togger (1937) as Peter Geis, Journalist
Patriots (1937) as Peter Thomann - genannt Pierre
Unternehmen Michael (1937) as Major Zur Linden
Michelangelo: Life of a Titan (1938) (voice)
Anna Favetti (1938) as Hemmstreet
Die Hochzeitsreise (1939) as Dr. Paul Goethals
Cadets (1939) as Rittmeister von Tzülow
Ich klage an (1941) as Dr. Bernhard Lang
Her Other Self (1941) as Ingenieur Martin
Paracelsus (1943) as Ulrich von Hutten
Man rede mir nicht von Liebe (1943) as Andreas Alwin
Dreaming (1944) as Robert Schumann
The Heart Must Be Silent (1944) as Dr. Paul Holzgruber
How Do We Tell Our Children? (1949) as Dr. Thomas Hofer
When a Woman Loves (1950) as Felder, Kunsthändler
Melody of Fate (1950), as Martin Ehrling
No Greater Love (1952) as Alfred Nobel
As Long as You're Near Me (1953) as Paul, der Autor
His Royal Highness (1953) as Dr. Raoul Überbein
A Love Story (1954) as Fritz v. Fredersdorff, Gutsbesitzer
The Last Summer (1954) as President Carlo Tolemainen
Fear (1954) as Professor Albert Wagner
Ripening Youth (1955) as Obersdtudiendirektor Dr. Berger
If All the Guys in the World (1956) as Karl Baumeister
The Marriage of Doctor Danwitz (1956) as Professor Schüddekopf
The Girl and the Legend (1957) as King Georg II
Wetterleuchten um Maria (1957) as Priest
Der Sittlichkeitsverbrecher (1963) as Richter
Erotikon - Karussell der Leidenschaften (1963)
Geld und Geist (1966) as Pfarrer (final film role)
Notes
External links
Meingast Family Site with information about Mathias Wieman
Photographs of Mathias Wieman
Excellent and detailed web site about Wieman by the late Dieter Svensson
Mathias Wieman and Erika Meingast gravesite in the Osnabrücker Johannesfriedhof
"Unternehmen Michael" - 1937 World War 1 drama. Full length.
Bust of Mathias Wieman recently discovered at the University of Vienna (in German).
Blog (in German) by Thomas Hunziker about "The Eternal Mask" being shown at the 2010 Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival.
"New York Times" review of "Unternehmen Michael" (The Private's Job). Cursor down to under "At the 86th St. Garden Theatre" for the review. Nugent, Frank S., "Goodbye Broadway," New York Times, 14 May 1938.
Information about a portrait done of Mathias Wieman by artist Hans Jürgen Kallmann.
1902 births
1969 deaths
German male film actors
German male silent film actors
German male stage actors
People from the Province of Hanover
People from Osnabrück
20th-century German male actors