Erich von Stroheim

Born: September 22 1885
Where: Vienna, Austria
Died: May 12 1957

Erich Stroheim adopted his 'von', the mark of nobility, somewhere between his native Vienna and Hollywood.

Specialising in villains, he was billed "the man you love to hate" when his autocratic Hun-like profile grew after America entered World War One.

In fact, his true aspiration was directing and Blind Husbands proved a successful debut in 1919 (he also wrote, designed the sets and starred).

The Devil's Passkey Foolish Wives also amplified his reputation for tales of adultery, as well as spendthrift production.

In perhaps the most famous case of a mangled masterpiece, Stroheim filmed Frank Norris's novel McTeague in obsessive detail, producing a 9 hour masterwork, Greed.

The horrified studio forced the director to cut the film, but that version was still over 4 hours, so the film was taken out of Stroheim's hands and pruned to its present 140-minute running time.

Hired by MGM to direct the operetta The Merry Widow, Stroheim perversely adapted it as a black comedy, replete with the sadism of the decadent Hapsburg empire.

He returned to the same subject for The Wedding March, a film so long it had to be released in two parts - the second part called The Honeymoon in Europe.

Stroheim's most profligate escapade was with Joseph P. Kennedy's money, on the Gloria Swanson vehicle Queen Kelly.

His directing career virtually ended with the swashbuckling silent era, as sound and budget-conscious production changed the tenor of filmmaking.

In the 1930s, with the Germans once again on the march, Stroheim returned to acting the horrible Hun as the commandant of the POW camp in Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion.

Although typecast, he did seem the only actor to inhabit that persona, and it was used with particularly poignant effect in Sunset Boulevard in 1950.