Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund; September 22, 1895 – August 25, 1967) was an Austrian-born American stage and film actor who grew up in Chicago. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theatre. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at Warner Brothers studios, and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted.His acting quality, usually playing a powerful character, such as the lead in Scarface (1932), was partly a result of his intense preparation for his parts, often immersing himself in study of the real character's traits and mannerisms. He was also highly skilled in using makeup techniques, a talent he learned from his parents, who were also actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish Theater in Chicago. At the age of 12, he played the stage role of an 80-year-old man; in one of his films, Seven Faces, he played seven different characters.He made 25 films and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur. He also starred in numerous Broadway plays and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the 1955 production of Inherit the Wind.
Copley Medal, Albert Medal, Rumford Medal, Leeuwenhoek Medal, Montyon Prizes, Academy Award for Best Actor, Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play, Volpi Cup for Best Actor
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Picture, Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance
Movies
Scarface, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola, Angel on My Shoulder, The Good Earth, The Last Angry Man, Black Fury, A Song to Remember, Juarez, The Valiant, Bordertown, Dr. Socrates, Commandos Strike at Dawn, The World Changes, Hi, Nellie!, Hudson's...
Star Sign
Virgo
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Trademark
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Known for his complete transformations into the roles he played (often changing his voice and appearence)
[on Robert Donat's performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)] The most magnificent performance I've ever seen on any screen. Not a false motion - not a wasted gesture. He is the greatest actor we have today.
I've never tried to learn the art of acting. I have been in the business for years but I still can't tell what acting is or how it's done.
4
I won't go up in a plane, but if a play crashes, I'll jump into the next one that comes along and take it up for a spin.
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A writer can write in an attic, or on top of a bus. Or with a sharp stick in some wet cement. To act, an actor has to have words. A stage. a camera turning. I can't go into the middle of Times Square, stop traffic and start acting.
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I don't want to be a star. If you have to label me anything, I'm an actor - I guess. A journeyman actor. I think "star" is what you call actors who can't act.
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Fact
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In early 1930 Fox Film Corporation announced that Paul Muni's next film for the company would be "It Might Have Happened", to be directed by Irving Cummings. The film eventually was not made.
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In 1959, he appeared in a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of "Grand Hotel" entitled "At the Grand". Disagreements between the star, the producers and the directors prompted the early closing in San Francisco before it ever made it to New York.
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He once told Clifford Odets about how he gave up boxing because it endangered his secondary career as a violinist. This inspired Odets to write "Golden Boy" (its film adaptation Golden Boy (1939) was directed by Rouben Mamoulian).
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He and James Dean are the only actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for both their first and last screen appearance.
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Of the six actors to receive Best Actor Academy Award nominations for their first screen appearance, he's the only one to eventually win a Best Actor Oscar during his career. Of the other five, Orson Welles won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, Alan Arkin eventually won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Montgomery Clift, Lawrence Tibbett and James Dean never won.
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Won Broadway's 1956 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Inherit the Wind."
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Perhaps the most famous portrayer of Louis Pasteur, Muni was born only six days before Pasteur's death.
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At the time he left Warner Brothers, he was trying to convince the studio to let him star in a biography of Ludwig van Beethoven. Warners weren't interested, and Muni never did portray the composer. If the film had been made, it would have been the first screen biography of Beethoven in English. Jack L. Warner, who was president of Warner Brothers, said to the actor, "Nobody wants to see a movie about a blind composer".
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A man of 5' 9" height, he wore small lifts (adding three or four inches) and padding to appear more hulking and ape-like as Tony in Scarface (1932).
During his live TV appearance in the Playhouse 90 (1956) episode "The Last Chance", he appeared to be wearing a hearing aid. He wasn't. At his advanced age, and given the state of his health, it was no longer possible for him to memorize long stretches of dialogue on short notice. What he was wearing was a small radio transmitter, through which he was fed his lines just prior to speaking them.
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Was given the nickname "The New Lon Chaney" at the start of his film career.
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Received Oscar nominations for both his first and last screen performances (The Valiant (1929) and The Last Angry Man (1959)).
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Suffered all his life from a rheumatic heart.
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Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA.
$1.3 Million
