Maximilian Schell

Maximilian Schell (born December 8, 1930, Vienna, Austria—died February 1, 2014, Innsbruck, Austria) was an Austrian actor and filmmaker who was most closely associated with the post-World War II courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg. Schell created the role of the accused Nazi war criminals’ eloquent defense attorney, Hans Rolfe, in the play’s original 1959 production on the TV anthology series Playhouse 90 and won the Academy Award for best actor for his re-creation of that role in the 1961 film adaptation; he later portrayed Ernst Janning, the chief defendant, on the Broadway stage.

Schell’s fiercely anti-Nazi family fled to Zürich after the 1938 Anschluss, in which Austria was annexed by Germany, and he served (1948–49) in the Swiss army. Schell began acting in West German films and onstage before following his older sister, actress Maria Schell, to Hollywood, where he made his debut as a German army officer in The Young Lions (1958).

Despite his rugged good looks, Schell eschewed leading-man roles in favour of more complex individuals, many of whom were drawn from the Nazi era. He earned Oscar nominations for his roles as a suspected Nazi war criminal in The Man in the Glass Booth (1975) and as an anti-Nazi patriot in Julia (1977) and received Emmy Award nominations in 1992 and 1993, respectively, for his portrayal of a Holocaust survivor in Miss Rose White and of the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in Stalin. Schell also wrote, produced, and directed several films, most notably documentaries on German actress Marlene Dietrich (1984) and on his sister Maria (2002).