Hugo Haas

Hugo Haas (19 February 1901 – 1 December 1968) was a Czech expatriate film actor, director and writer. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1926 and 1962, as well as directing 20 films between 1933 and 1962.
Life and career
Haas was born in Brno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), and died in Vienna, Austria from complications of asthma. He and his brother, Pavel Haas, studied voice at the Brno Conservatory under composer Leoš Janáček. Pavel Haas went on to become a noted composer himself before he was killed in Auschwitz in 1944.
Czechoslovak theater and film
After graduating from the conservatory in 1920, Hugo Haas began acting at the National Theater in Brno, in Ostrava and in Olomouc. In 1924 he moved to Prague and regularly appeared at the Vinohrady Theatre, where he remained until 1929. In 1930, Karel Hugo Hilar made Haas a member of the Prague National Theatre drama company, where he remained until his emigration in 1939. One of his most highly acclaimed roles was as Doctor Galén in The White Disease, which Karel Čapek had written especially for him. His final role at the National Theater was as Director Busman in Čapek's R.U.R.
Haas made his film debut as Notary Voborský in the silent film Jedenácté přikázání (The Eleventh Commandment) in 1923. (Twelve years later he played the same role again in Jedenácté přikázání directed by Martin Frič.) With the advent of sound film, Haas was able to apply his comedic talent in Svatopluk Innemann's Muži v offsidu in 1931. By 1938 Haas had acted in some thirty films. In 1936, he directed his first film, Camel Through the Eye of a Needle (co-directed with Otakar Vávra). He later directed Kvočna (the film score was composed by his brother Pavel), The White Disease and Co se šeptá. His final comedy in Czechoslovakia was Miroslav Cikán's Andula Won, which appeared in cinemas in 1938.
Emigration
Following the 1938 Munich Agreement and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in early 1939, Hugo Haas was dismissed from the National Theater due to his Jewish origin. In April he and his wife, Maria von Bibikoff ("Bibi"), fled via Paris, Spain, and then from the port of Lisbon, Portugal, to the port of New York in October–November 1940. Their son, Ivan, was taken in by his brother Pavel. Hugo Haas' father Lipmann (Zikmund) Haas and brother Pavel died at Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.
United States
By the mid-1940s, Haas had become a character actor in American films. In 1951 he launched a successful if unacclaimed career as a film director in Hollywood with a string of B movie melodramas, usually starring blonde actresses in the role of a predatory mantrap. Haas usually cast himself as the male lead in the films although the female role almost always dominated the storyline and was usually exclusively promoted on film posters. His work also includes a touching human drama, The Girl on the Bridge (1951) – which he co-wrote, directed and starred in – about a kindly watchmaker who after having lost his wife and family in the Holocaust, befriends, marries, and raises a second family with a young woman he saves from suicide.
Cleo Moore starred in six films for Haas, becoming a well-known film star in that era. Other actresses who starred in Haas' films were Beverly Michaels and Carol Morris. The Haas pictures generally received poor reviews but were for the most part commercially successful, and on occasion featured such well-known names as Eleanor Parker, John Agar, Vince Edwards, Rock Hudson, Joan Blondell, Agnes Moorehead, Julie London, Corinne Griffith, and Marie Windsor.
Haas's final film, Paradise Alley, was rejected by the major studios and sat unreleased for over three years, finally surfacing in a limited run in 1962.
Production company
Haas's first American film was bankrolled out of his own pocket for $85,000. The financial success of Pickup led to the creation of the independent Hugo Haas Productions, which he used to produce 12 of his 14 American films from 1951 to 1959. Independent studios were not atypical at this time, but Haas' operating procedures were. He financed his own films, and the budgets were minuscule compared to most Hollywood fare. While his films' budgets usually ran from $80,000 to $100,000, the average cost for a Hollywood picture in 1955 was $1,500,000. His ventures were risky; he did not secure distribution deals with larger studios until after the movies were made, sometimes delaying their release for months or even years. While Hollywood studios practiced division of labor, with well defined and distinct roles for workers, Haas was described as a "one-man production team," having financed, produced, written, and directed all of his Hugo Hass productions, and having acted in all but one.
Return to Europe
In the late 1950s, Haas returned to Europe. After a brief stay in Italy, he settled in Vienna in 1961, where he made occasional appearances on television. Except for a brief visit during the centennial celebrations for the National Theater in Prague in 1963, he never returned to his homeland but was buried in Brno. His wife, Maria, died in 2009, aged 92.
Selected filmography
As director
Velbloud uchem jehly (1936)
Děvčata, nedejte se! (1937)
Kvočna (1937)
Co se šeptá (1938)
Skeleton on Horseback (The White Disease) (1937)
Pickup (1951)
The Girl on the Bridge (1951)
Strange Fascination (1952)
One Girl's Confession (1953)
Thy Neighbor's Wife (1953)
Bait (1954)
The Other Woman (1954)
Hold Back Tomorrow (1955)
Edge of Hell (1956)
Hit and Run (1957)
Lizzie (1957)
Night of the Quarter Moon (1958)
Born to Be Loved (1959)
Paradise Alley (1962)
As actor
Jedenácté prikázání (1925) - Jirí Voborský
From the Czech Mills (1925) - Baron Zachariás Zlámaný
Když struny lkají (1930) - a gentleman in a bar
The Last Bohemian (1931) - MUDr. Katz
Muži v offsidu (1931) - Načeradec
(1931) - Richard Načeradec, businessman
Kariéra Pavla Camrdy (1931) - Vokoun
Obrácení Ferdyše Pištory (1932) - Richard Rosenstok, banker
(1932) - Adam Hejnu, shoemaker
Madla z cihelny (1933) - Jan Dolanský
The House in the Suburbs (1933) - Zajícek
Její lékar (1933) - Pavel Hodura, painter
Life Is a Dog (1933) - Skladatel Viktor Honzl / Prof. Alfréd Rokos
Sister Angelika (1933) - Pavel Ryant
Okénko (1933) - Lecturer Jakub Johánek
Poslední muž (1934) - Prof. Alois Kohout
The Little Pet (1934) - Dr. Alois Pech, vezenský knihovník
Long Live with Dearly Departed (1935) - Petr Suk
Jedenácté přikázání (1935) - Jiri Vobosky
Paradise Road (1936) - Tobiás
The Seamstress (1936) - Francois Lorrain - Parisian fashion king
Three Men in the Snow (1936) - Továrník Eduard Bárta
Devcata, nedejte se! (1937) - Prof. Emanuel Pokorný
Morality Above All Else (1937) - Professor Antonín Karas
Andula Won (1937) - Pavel Haken
The White Disease (1937) - Dr. Galen
Co se šeptá (1938) - Vilém Gregor
Svět kde se žebrá (1938) - Josef Dostál, beggar-millionaire
Camel Through the Eye of a Needle (1939) - Žebrák Josef Pešta
Days of Glory (1944) - Fedor
Summer Storm (1944) - Anton Urbenin
Strange Affair (1944) - Domino / Constantine
Mrs. Parkington (1944) - Balkan King (uncredited)
The Princess and the Pirate (1944) - Proprietor 'Bucket of Blood'
Documents secrets (1945) - Morenius
A Bell for Adano (1945) - Father Pensovecchio
Jealousy (1945) - Hugo Kral
Dakota (1945) - Marko Poli
What Next, Corporal Hargrove? (1945) - Mayor Quidoc
Two Smart People (1946) - Señor Rodriquez
Holiday in Mexico (1946) - Angus, Evans' butler
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947) - Monsieur Walter
Fiesta (1947) - Maximino Contreras
Northwest Outpost (1947) - Prince Nickolai Balinin
The Foxes of Harrow (1947) - Otto Ludenbach
Merton of the Movies (1947) - Von Strutt - Director
My Girl Tisa (1948) - Tescu
Casbah (1948) - Omar
For the Love of Mary (1948) - Gustav Heindel
The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) - Gen. Paul De Marchand
King Solomon's Mines (1950) - Van Brun aka Smith
Vendetta (1950) - Brando - a Bandit
Pickup (1951) - Jan Horak
The Girl on the Bridge (1951) - David
Strange Fascination (1952) - Paul Marvan
One Girl's Confession (1953) - Dragomie Damitrof
Thy Neighbor's Wife (1953) - Town Judge Raphael Vojnar
Bait (1954) - Marko
The Other Woman (1954) - Walter Darman
Edge of Hell (1956)- Valentine
Hit and Run (1957) - Gus Hilmer / Twin Brother
Lizzie (1957) - Walter Brenner
Born to Be Loved (1959) - Prof. Brauner
Bonanza (1960, TV Series) - Zirko S1 E31 "Dark Star"
Paradise Alley (1962) - Mr. Agnus
References
External links
Hugo Haas, "The Power of Self-Preservation"
Milain Hain, "Hugo Haas, Trauma, and Survivor Guilt"
Milain Hain, "Hugo Haas, Forgotten Emigre"
1901 births
1968 deaths
Actors from Brno
People from the Margraviate of Moravia
Jewish Czech actors
Czech male film actors
Czech film directors
20th-century Czech male actors
Expatriate male actors in the United States
Czechoslovak expatriates in the United States
Deaths from asthma
Film people from Brno
Brno Conservatory alumni