Curt Goetz
Curt Goetz (17 November 1888 – 12 September 1960), born Kurt Walter Götz, was a Swiss German writer, actor and film director. Curt Goetz was regarded as one of the most brilliant comedy writers of his time in the German-speaking world. Together with his wife Valérie von Martens he acted in his own plays and also filmed them. He was a distant relative of the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, with whom he was often compared.
Life and work
Kurt Walter Götz was born in Mainz, Germany as the son of the Swiss wine examiner Bernhard Götz, and his German wife of Italian and French descent, Selma (born Rocco). His father died in 1890. His mother then went with the two-year-old Curt to Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, where she managed a private clinic.
In 1906 he completed the City High School in Halle, where he had played Franz Moor in The Robbers by Schiller.
His mother remarried, and his stepfather encouraged and financed his first steps in the theatre. He studied acting under the Berlin actor Emanuel Reicher, and in 1907 he made his stage debut at the Stadttheater in Rostock. In Rostock, he also wrote his first sketches for the stage. He then played at theatres in Nuremberg and then went to Berlin. In 1912 he played the lead in the silent movie Black Blood, directed by Harry Piel.