Anton Diffring

Biography

Anton Diffring was a character actor who worked continuously in motion pictures due to his aristocratic, German face and cool, clipped diction, making him ideal for typecasting in British and later American motion pictures as Nazis and other vile, despicable characters. What was ironic about his typecasting as a Nazi is that Diffring, born in Koblenz, Germany, on October 20, 1918, fled Nazi Germany in 1939. He was born into a family that boasted generations of actors, and he studied drama in Berlin and Vienna. At the outbreak of World War II he fled Germany and wound up in Canada, where he was interned as an enemy alien for the duration of the war. It was in Canada where he began his acting career after World War II, working primarily there and in the US before moving to Britain in 1950. He became popular playing Nazis in the postwar period, as the British film industry turned out film after film about the war, which created a great demand for actors who could convincingly play Nazis, the nastier the better. Diffring could play nasty, and his career as a character actor soared. He was still going at it in the 1960s, when he began appearing in American and international co-productions as German soldiers from both WW I and WW II, including The Blue Max (1966), Counterpoint (1967) and that Turner Network Television staple, Where Eagles Dare (1968). He was still going at it in the 1970s and 1980s, as he continued a nearly 40-year-long acting career that was terminated only by his death. He was a much better actor than most of his roles required. Diffring broadened his range as an actor with stage and television work, but the movies continually beckoned, as casting agents were hooked on him when it came to Nazi roles. It was that face that did it; it was both his blessing…