Friedrich Gustav Max Schreck (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936) was a German actor. He is remembered for his role in the horror movie Nosferatu (1922).

Early life 
Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. He received his training at the  (the State Theatre of Berlin). He completed his studies in 1902. He made his stage debut in Meseritz and Speyer. He then toured Germany for two years appearing at theatres in Zittau, Erfurt, Bremen, Lucerne, Gera, and Frankfurt am Main. Schreck then joined Max Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin. Many of Reinhardt's troupe made a significant contribution to movies.

Career 
Between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele. He had a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's debut,  (Drums in the Night). He played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb. During this time he also worked on his first movie Der Richter von Zalamea. In 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for their first and only movie, Nosferatu. The company declared itself bankrupt after the movie was released. They did not want to pay copyright infringement costs to Dracula author Bram Stoker's widow. Schreck portrayed Count Orlok in the movie. The character was very similar to Count Dracula.

In 1923, Schreck was still in Munich. He appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht entitled  (Mysteries of a Barbershop). Schreck appeared as a blind man in the film  (The Street) the same year.

Schreck's second collaboration with Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau was the 1924 comedy  (The Grand Duke's Finances). Murnau did not like the final product.

In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich. He continued to act in movies. He made the transition to "talkies". He died in 1936 in Munich of a heart attack. On 19 February 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the play . That evening he felt unwell. The doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning His obituary praised his role as The Miser in Molière's comedy play. He was buried on 14 March 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof in Berlin.

Personal life 
Schreck was married to actress Fanny Normann. She appeared in a few movies. She was often credited as Fanny Schreck. The word schreck is also the German word for fright, or terror. Because of this, many authors who were unaware of Schreck's on-stage credits (and ignorant of the rather sparse details of his personal life) speculated that there was really no such person, and that Schreck was, in fact, some well-known actor who had chosen to adopt a pseudonym for his role in Nosferatu. One of the prime "suspects" was Alfred Abel; however, a careful examination of the photographs of these two actors is sufficient to dispel such notions.

Schreck's contemporaries recalled he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor. He was skilled in playing grotesque characters. One reported he lived in "a remote and strange world". He was said to spend time walking through dark forests.

Cultural references
The person and performance of Max Schreck in Nosferatu has been fictionalized by actor Willem Dafoe in E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire. In a sort of secret history, Shadow posits that Schreck actually was a vampire.

Scriptwriter Daniel Waters created the character Max Shreck for the film Batman Returns and compared him to the character Max Schreck played in Nosferatu. Variety claimed the name was an in-joke. Shreck was a character created exclusively for the movie, absent from the comics, and serves as one of the main antagonists.

Notes

References 

 Brill, Olaf. 2004. filmhistoriker.de. Retrieved 26 December 2008
 Graham, Dave. Book lifts lid on star of eerie first Dracula film. 9 May 2008. Reuters. Retrieved 26 December 2008
 Walk, Ines. film-zeit.de . February 2006. (German) Retrieved 14 July 2008

Further reading 
 
  (summary of Eickhoff's biography/tribute of Schreck)

Other websites 

 
 Official Max Schreck Page

1879 births
1936 deaths
Actors from Berlin
Cardiovascular disease deaths in Germany
Deaths from myocardial infarction
German movie actors