Eduard Franz (born Eduard Franz Schmidt; October 31, 1902 â€" February
10, 1983) was an American actor of theatre, film and television. Franz
portrayed King Ahab in the 1953 biblical low-budget film Sins of
Jezebel, Jethro in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and
Jehoam in Henry Koster's The Story of Ruth (1960).Franz was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His childhood ambition was to become a
commercial artist, a goal that led him to enroll later at the
University of Wisconsin, where he joined the Wisconsin Players
Theater, a new student group. Performing in the theater's 1922-1923
season reignited his ambition to become an artist, although one of a
different type, an actor. A year later, he was cast in Chicago
productions of the Coffee-Miller Players. Dropping his surname, Franz
next acted with the Provincetown Players in New York's Greenwich
Village, a hothouse of theatrical ferment that had first brought the
world the dramatic works of writers Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell,
and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Franz also appeared with Paul Robeson in
The Emperor Jones and with Walter Huston in Desire Under the Elms. He
continued to perform until his stage work was interrupted by the Great
Depression.By then married to his wife Margaret, he tried to eke out a
living as chicken farmers in Texas. The young couple soon returned to
Wisconsin, where Franz acted in regional theater while teaching art to
pay the bills. By 1936, he was a player on the national stage,
performing from coast to coast . He became a leading Broadway actor
for nearly 30 years, in such plays as First Stop to Heaven and
Embezzled Heaven and Conversation At Midnight. He made his film debut
in a bit part, in 1947, in Killer at Large, but followed that brief
appearance the next year with a memorable role in the motion picture
The Scar (also titled Hollow Triumph). His fourth movie saw him acting
with John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch, in 1948. He portrayed Chief
Broken Hand in White Feather. He played such intellectuals as Dr.
Stern in The Thing from Another World (1951), a university professor
in The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), and Justice Louis
Brandeis in The Magnificent Yankee (1950), a role he reprised in the
1965 television adaptation. He appeared in a 1957 television
adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel Beyond This Place, which was
directed by Sidney Lumet.Franz performed as well in two separate
remakes of Al Jolson's 1927 cinema classic The Jazz Singer, each time
playing the key role of the aged and ailing synagogue cantor upset by
his son's decision to pursue a secular show-business career rather
than continue the family tradition and follow in his father's
religious footsteps. Those remakes were the 1952 film version of the
story starring Danny Thomas and the 1959 television version starring
Jerry Lewis.
10, 1983) was an American actor of theatre, film and television. Franz
portrayed King Ahab in the 1953 biblical low-budget film Sins of
Jezebel, Jethro in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and
Jehoam in Henry Koster's The Story of Ruth (1960).Franz was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His childhood ambition was to become a
commercial artist, a goal that led him to enroll later at the
University of Wisconsin, where he joined the Wisconsin Players
Theater, a new student group. Performing in the theater's 1922-1923
season reignited his ambition to become an artist, although one of a
different type, an actor. A year later, he was cast in Chicago
productions of the Coffee-Miller Players. Dropping his surname, Franz
next acted with the Provincetown Players in New York's Greenwich
Village, a hothouse of theatrical ferment that had first brought the
world the dramatic works of writers Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell,
and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Franz also appeared with Paul Robeson in
The Emperor Jones and with Walter Huston in Desire Under the Elms. He
continued to perform until his stage work was interrupted by the Great
Depression.By then married to his wife Margaret, he tried to eke out a
living as chicken farmers in Texas. The young couple soon returned to
Wisconsin, where Franz acted in regional theater while teaching art to
pay the bills. By 1936, he was a player on the national stage,
performing from coast to coast . He became a leading Broadway actor
for nearly 30 years, in such plays as First Stop to Heaven and
Embezzled Heaven and Conversation At Midnight. He made his film debut
in a bit part, in 1947, in Killer at Large, but followed that brief
appearance the next year with a memorable role in the motion picture
The Scar (also titled Hollow Triumph). His fourth movie saw him acting
with John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch, in 1948. He portrayed Chief
Broken Hand in White Feather. He played such intellectuals as Dr.
Stern in The Thing from Another World (1951), a university professor
in The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), and Justice Louis
Brandeis in The Magnificent Yankee (1950), a role he reprised in the
1965 television adaptation. He appeared in a 1957 television
adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel Beyond This Place, which was
directed by Sidney Lumet.Franz performed as well in two separate
remakes of Al Jolson's 1927 cinema classic The Jazz Singer, each time
playing the key role of the aged and ailing synagogue cantor upset by
his son's decision to pursue a secular show-business career rather
than continue the family tradition and follow in his father's
religious footsteps. Those remakes were the 1952 film version of the
story starring Danny Thomas and the 1959 television version starring
Jerry Lewis.
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