# Joseph Schildkraut
**Joseph Schildkraut** (1895 or 1896 – January 21, 1964) was an Austrian-American stage and film actor who won the [Academy Award for Best Actor](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-award-for-best-actor) in a Supporting Role for playing Captain Alfred Dreyfus in *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937) and is best remembered today as [Otto Frank](https://www.edgepedia.org/otto-frank) in the original Broadway production and 1959 film of *The Diary of Anne Frank*.[1](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1938) • [2](https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/whit/Whitfield-StudiesinContemporaryJewry8.pdf) He was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of the stage actor Rudolph Schildkraut and his wife Erna Weinstein, and was nicknamed Pepi from childhood.[3](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1413) • [4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | Vienna, Austria, March 22; year recorded as 1895 by the Library of Congress and one IMDb note, as 1896 by IMDb's headline dates and a contemporary profile[3](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1413) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/) • [4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) |
| Died | January 21, 1964, New York, New York[6](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf) |
| Academy Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role, 10th Academy Awards (March 10, 1938), for Captain Alfred Dreyfus in *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937)[1](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1938) |
| Signature stage role | Otto Frank in the original 1955 Broadway production of *The Diary of Anne Frank*; 1,068 performances over three years, repeated in the 1959 film[2](https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/whit/Whitfield-StudiesinContemporaryJewry8.pdf) |
| Broadway breakthrough | Title role in Ferenc Molnár's *Liliom* (1921), opposite Eva Le Gallienne[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) |
| Later honors | Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, for playing Otto Frank in *The Diary of Anne Frank* (1960); Emmy nomination for a guest role on NBC's *Sam Benedict* (1963)[6](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf) • [8](https://goldenglobes.com/film/diary-of-anne-frank-the/) |
| Final film | Nicodemus in *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965)[5](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/) |
## Training and early career
Schildkraut's parents wanted him to be a concert pianist and enrolled him in the Imperial Academy of Music in Berlin, where he studied piano and violin; after graduating in 1911 the family emigrated to the United States in 1912 and settled in New York, where his father worked in the thriving Yiddish theater.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) He studied at the [American Academy of Dramatic Arts](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-academy-of-dramatic-arts), whose classmates included [Paul Muni](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-muni) and [William Powell](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-powell), and graduated in 1913.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) The family then returned to Germany when his father accepted a contract with the Max Reinhardt company, and Joseph made his formal stage debut in Reinhardt's production of *The Prodigal Son* in 1913, coached by the character actor Albert Basserman.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
He began appearing in silent films with *Shlemihl* (1915), in which his father also appeared, followed by *Das Wiegenlied* (1915) and *Schweigepflicht* (1916).[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) World War I interrupted his career; a call to the Austrian Army could have ended it, but his theatrical connections helped exempt him from duty.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/) With stage work in Germany still scarce after the war, his father moved the family back to New York in 1920.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
## Broadway and the silent screen
In 1921 Schildkraut played the title role in [Ferenc Molnár](https://www.edgepedia.org/ferenc-molnar)'s *Liliom*, the play later adapted by [Rodgers and Hammerstein](https://www.edgepedia.org/rodgers-and-hammerstein) as *Carousel*, opposite Eva Le Gallienne; the production made stars of both actors, and they reprised the roles in a 1932 Broadway revival.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) His first American film role came the same year, as the Chevalier de Vaudray in D.W. Griffith's *Orphans of the Storm*, starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
Through the mid-1920s Hollywood cast him as the suave foreign leading man, in films such as *The Song of Love* (1923) with Norma Talmadge, *The Road to Yesterday* (1925) with Jetta Goudal, *Shipwrecked* (1926), and *Meet the Prince* (1926).[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) His introduction to sound came as Gaylord Ravenal in the mostly silent 1929 version of *Show Boat* with Laura La Plante, which carried several sequences of synchronized dialogue.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
## Villains and the DeMille typecasting
A turn away from leading-man parts began with [Cecil B. DeMille](https://www.edgepedia.org/cecil-b-demille)'s *The King of Kings* (1927), in which Schildkraut played [Judas Iscariot](https://www.edgepedia.org/judas-iscariot) while his father appeared as the high priest Caiaphas.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) A scholarly study by Anton Karl Kozlovic, a researcher of religion and film, identifies Schildkraut as typecast in an archetypal betrayer mold across four DeMille films, *The King of Kings*, *Cleopatra*, *The Crusades*, and *The Road to Yesterday*, as part of DeMille's practice of "deep focus casting," the engineering of correspondences between characters and actors' personal idiosyncrasies.[7](https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/jrpc.6.1.002) Through the 1930s and 1940s he most often played smooth, cunning villains, including the oily Mr. Vadas in [Ernst Lubitsch](https://www.edgepedia.org/ernst-lubitsch)'s *The Shop Around the Corner* (1940) with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/)
## The Oscar and Otto Frank
At the 10th Academy Awards, held March 10, 1938, Schildkraut won the Oscar for Actor in a Supporting Role for his sympathetic portrayal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in Warner Bros.' *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937), over nominees [Ralph Bellamy](https://www.edgepedia.org/ralph-bellamy), Thomas Mitchell, H. B. Warner, and Roland Young; the film also won Outstanding Production.[1](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1938)
The role for which he is most remembered came from Broadway. Garson Kanin cast him as Otto Frank in the original 1955 New York production of *The Diary of Anne Frank*, and he played the part 1,068 times over three years before repeating it in [George Stevens](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-stevens)'s 1959 film.[2](https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/whit/Whitfield-StudiesinContemporaryJewry8.pdf) Schildkraut said the part was the culmination of his professional life, that he had never before felt such an intimate relationship to a play or identification with a part, and that [Anne Frank](https://www.edgepedia.org/anne-frank)'s diary "actually wrote the epitaph to a whole period of the history of Europe, the history of Germany, [and] the tragedy of the Jews."[2](https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/whit/Whitfield-StudiesinContemporaryJewry8.pdf) He was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for the film role in 1960.[6](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf) • [8](https://goldenglobes.com/film/diary-of-anne-frank-the/)
## Television and final years
Television gave him a steady venue in the 1950s. He played Claudius in a 1953 Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of *Hamlet*, hosted and starred in his own anthology series, *Joseph Schildkraut Presents*, on the [DuMont Television Network](https://www.edgepedia.org/dumont-television-network) from October 1953 to January 1954, and appeared in two third-season episodes of *The Twilight Zone*: "Deaths-Head Revisited" (1961), as a Dachau survivor who returns to confront his tormentor, and "The Trade-Ins" (1962), as an old man who declines a new young body to stay with his ailing wife.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/) • [6](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf) In 1963 he was nominated for a Best Actor Emmy for a guest appearance on NBC's legal drama *Sam Benedict*.[4](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
He married Leonora Rogers on March 22, 1963, his third marriage, and died in New York on January 21, 1964.[6](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf) His last film role, as [Nicodemus](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicodemus) in *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965), was released after his death.[5](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/) His papers, including four scrapbooks compiled by Leonora as a gift for her husband, are held in the Music Division of the Library of Congress, and the Anne Frank House holds a collection of his materials, including correspondence with Otto Frank.[3](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1413)
## References
1. [The 10th Academy Awards (1938), Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1938)
2. [Stephen Whitfield, "Value Added: Jews in Postwar America," Studies in Contemporary Jewry (PDF), Berman Jewish Policy Archive](https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/whit/Whitfield-StudiesinContemporaryJewry8.pdf)
3. [Rudolph and Joseph Schildkraut Scrapbooks, Library of Congress finding aid](https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/15/resources/1413)
4. [Know Your Character Actor – Joseph Schildkraut, Smum County (2017)](https://smumcounty.com/2017/01/28/know-your-character-actor-joseph-schldkraut/)
5. [Joseph Schildkraut, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771584/)
6. [Rudolph and Joseph Schildkraut Scrapbooks, Library of Congress finding aid (PDF)](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/mu017010/mu017010.pdf)
7. [The Deep Focus Typecasting of Joseph Schildkraut as Judas Figure in Four DeMille Films, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (University of Toronto Press)](https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/jrpc.6.1.002)
8. [Diary of Anne Frank, The - Golden Globes](https://goldenglobes.com/film/diary-of-anne-frank-the/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 1940s to 1960s › Surnames Q to St*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license