Charles Korvin
Birthday: Born in 1907-11-21 in Piestany, Austria-Hungary [now Piestany, Slovakia]
Deathday: 1998-06-18
Charles Korvin (born Géza Korvin Kárpáthy) was an American film, television and stage actor. He was also a professional still and motion picture photographer and master chef. The Hungarian actor moved to Paris around 1930. He studied at the Sorbonne and during his ten years living in France, he was hired by Yvon, the famous French postcard company, shooting on location all over the country. In 1937, he was hired for a CBC documentary film project about the renowned Canadian medical doctor, Norman Bethune. Entitled “Heart of Spain”, Korvin photographed and co-directed the anti-Franco film which was shot on the front lines during the Spanish Civil War. Moving to the United States in 1940, Korvin studied acting and stagecraft at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia. As Géza Korvin, he made his Broadway stage debut in 1943, playing a Russian nobleman in the play, Dark Eyes. After signing a movie contract with Universal Pictures, he changed his stage name to Charles Korvin. He worked steadily through the 1940s, including appearing in three films with actress Merle Oberon. He was blacklisted around 1952, refused to testify before the HUAC, and his film career was halted. Turning to the newly burgeoning, and much less political, field of broadcast television, Korvin starred in early productions for Playhouse 90, Studio One, and US Steel Hour. He played The Eagle for six contiguous episodes on Disney's Zorro and played Latin dance instructor Carlos on The Honeymooners episode "Mama Loves Mambo." In 1960, he starred as Inspector Duval in the UK/US television series Interpol Calling produced by J. Arthur Rank. During these years, Korvin returned to off-Broadway theater starring as the king in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I with runs at the Westbury Music Fair and the St. Louis Municipal Opera. He was back on Broadway in the mid-1960s starring as the upstairs neighbor in Neil Simon’s Tony Award winning play, “Barefoot in the Park”. In 1964, he returned to Hollywood to play the ship’s captain in Stanley Kramer’s Academy Award winning film, Ship of Fools. Remaining active in later years, he was the voice of the Red Baron for eight years on television and radio ads for Lufthansa Airlines. For more than 25 years, Korvin, with his wife Anne, were part-of-the-year residents in Klosters, Switzerland, where he enjoyed skiing, cooking and entertaining with friends and fellow part time residents Irwin and Marion Shaw, Greta Garbo, Salka Viertel, Deborah Kerr, Robert Ricci, John Fairchild and Gaetan de Rosnay among others. Korvin claimed to have been Greta Garbo's last dance partner. Julia Child, another long time friend, was interviewed in 1978 by Dick Cavett on his PBS television show. When he asked her to name her favorite “amateur” chef, Child replied, “Charles Korvin”.
TV Credits
The F.B.I.
Character: Captain Istvan Sladek
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only....
Studio One
Character: Francis
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Zorro
Character:
Diego de la Vega, the son of a wealthy landowner, returns from his studies in Spain and discovers that Los Angeles is under the command of Capitan Monastario, a cruel man who relishes in the misuse of his power for personal gain. Knowing that he cannot hope to single-handedly defeat Monastario and his troops, Diego resorts to subterfuge. He adopts the secret identity of Zorro, a sinister figure dressed in black, and rides to fight Monastario's injustice....
The Honeymooners
Character:
A bus driver and his sewer worker friend struggle to strike it rich while their wives look on with weary patience. One of the most influential situation comedy television series in American history....
Interpol Calling
Character: Inspector Paul Duval
The adventures of Interpol policemen Duval and Mornay as they fought against international drug-running, homicide, robbery and forgery....
The Millionaire
Character: Anton Bohrman / Anton Kosleck
An anthology series that explored the ways sudden and unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him, with one exception....
Climax!
Character: General Steck
Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live....
Suspense
Character:
An anthology series adapted from the radio program of the same name. Like the radio program, many scripts were adaptations of literary classics by well-known authors. Classic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens all had stories adapted for the series, while contemporary authors such as Roald Dahl and Gore Vidal also contributed....
Robert Montgomery Presents
Character: Rupert Farrand
Robert Montgomery Presents is an American dramatic television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950 until June 24, 1957. The live show had several sponsors during its seven-year run, and the title was altered to feature the sponsor, usually Lucky Strike cigarettes, for example, Robert Montgomery Presents Your Lucky Strike Theater, ....The Johnson's Wax Program, and so on....
Lights Out
Character:
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contribu...
Letter to Loretta
Character: Leo Unten
Letter to Loretta is an American anthology drama series telecast on NBC from September 1953 to June 1961 for a total of 165 episodes. The filmed show was hosted by Loretta Young who also played the lead in various episodes. Letter to Loretta was sponsored by Procter & Gamble from 1953 through 1960. The final season's sponsor was Warner-Lambert's Listerine....
The F.B.I.
Character: Paul Sieger / Helmut Probst
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only....
The F.B.I.
Character: Paul Stoner
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only....
Studio One
Character: Philip Hausman
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Studio One
Character: Paul Collins
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Studio One
Character: Julian Wilder
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Studio One
Character:
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Studio One
Character: Gastman
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Studio One
Character: El Cameron
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Holocaust
Character: Dr. Kohn
Berlin, Germany, 1935. The day Karl Weiss, a Jewish painter, and Inga Helms, a Christian woman, marry, is the one in which both of them and the entire Weiss family are caught up in the maelstrom of the Nazi regime, the storms of World War II and the horrors of the criminal Final Solution, the Holocaust, the Shoah; while Erik Dorf, an ambitious lawyer, undertakes his fall into hell at the hands of the sinister Reinhard Heydrich....
Climax!
Character: Dr. Andre Demerre
Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live....
Movie Credits
Ship of Fools
Character: Capt. Thiele
Passengers on a ship traveling from Mexico to Europe in the 1930s represent society at large in that era. The crew is German, including the ship's Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with one of the passengers, La Condesa. A young American woman, Jenny, is traveling with the man she loves, David. Jenny is fascinated and puzzled by just who some of the other passengers are....
The Killer That Stalked New York
Character: Matt Krane
In New York, Sheila Bennet and her spouse, Matt Krane, are trying to unload a trove of rare jewels they smuggled into America from Cuba, but the police are hot on the couple's trail. Meanwhile, government officials begin a desperate search for an unknown individual who is infecting the city with smallpox....
Berlin Express
Character: Perrot
In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot....
Temptation
Character: Mahoud Baroudi
After marrying an archaeologist, a Victorian-era woman with a sordid past realizes that she is not ready to settle down with one man....
Tarzan's Savage Fury
Character: Rokov, Russian Agent
The jungle king's cousin tries to get him to help find a diamond treasure....
Inside Out
Character: Peter Dohlberg
An American ex-WW II POW returns to Germany 30 years after the war. He teams up with the former commander of his prison camp. Together they spring a Nazi war criminal from jail. He's the only one left who knows where a secret wartime cache of gold is hidden....
Sangaree
Character: Harvey Bristol
Lamas plays an indentured servant who rises to power in Georgia shortly after the Revolutionary War....
Enter Arsène Lupin
Character: Arsene Lupin
A rich but naive young woman is in possession of some priceless jewels. She herself doesn't know it, but a gang of jewel thieves does....
This Love of Ours
Character: Dr. Michael Touzac
At a convention, medical researcher Michel Touzac goes with colleagues to see stage caricaturist Targel, whose assistant Florence recognizes him...and attempts suicide. Saved by Touzac's new technique, Florence is revealed in a flashback as Michel's abandoned wife Karin, whom their daughter Susette thinks is dead. Can Susette cope if they now re-unite?...
Lydia Bailey
Character: Col. Gabriel D'autremont
A young Boston lawyer, Albron Hamlin, goes to Haiti in 1802 to find Lydia Bailey, whose estate he must settle. The island is war-torn in the strife between Toussaing L'Overture, the black president, and the French who are trying to retake possession of the country. Hamlin finds Lydia and, against the background of war and rebellion, they fall in love while helping the Haitians against the French....
The Man Who Had Power Over Women
Character: Alfred Felix
A successful talent agent enjoys the good life until his wife leaves him. Moving in with his friend and igniting an affair with the man's wife, he also acquires a difficult new client whose public image must be preserved at any cost....
Zorro, the Avenger
Character: The Eagle
Masked crusader Zorro and his father, Don Alejandro, face off against mysterious despot The Eagle in a fight for control of old Spanish California....