Helmut Dantine

Personal Info

Known For Actor

Gender Male

Birthday 1918-10-07

Deathday 1982-05-02 (63 years old)

Place of Birth Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Also Known As Helmut Guttmann

Helmut Dantine

Biography

Helmut Dantine was an Austrian-American actor who often played Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. His best-known performances are perhaps the German pilot in Mrs. Miniver, and the desperate refugee in Casablanca, who tries gambling to obtain travel visa money for himself and his wife. As his acting career waned, he turned to producing. Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles. His relatives thought he would go into business, but he became interested in theater. He began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse, while running two gas stations in order to pay his expenses. Dantine was spotted by a talent scout from Warner Bros, who signed him to a contract. Dantine had uncredited parts in International Squadron and To Be or Not to Be, before his first credited role in MGM's Mrs. Miniver, playing a downed German pilot captured by the title character (played by Greer Garson). It was a huge hit, and Dantine received much positive attention from being in the film. In August 1942, Warners signed him to a new acting contract. The studio kept him busy with roles in the World War II films, The Pied Piper, Desperate Journey fighting Errol Flynn, and The Navy Comes Through. He had a sympathetic role in Casablanca, as a young refugee trying and failing to earn money via gambling. Warners begin to give Dantine more sizeable roles in their "A" films, Watch on the Rhine, Edge of Darkness, playing a Nazi officer, again fighting Errol Flynn, and Mission to Moscow, playing a sympathetic Russian. Dantine's good looks caused him to receive a lot of fan mail and, in the words of one profile, "the studio began to realize it had something else besides a Hollywood Hitlerite on its hands". Warners announced they had bought Night Action by Norman Krasna as a vehicle for Dantine, but the film appears not to have been made. Instead, he had a large role playing the villain in Northern Pursuit (1943), as a Nazi running loose in northern Canada fighting Errol Flynn again. Warner Bros. later cast him in a sympathetic role in Passage to Marseille, and he was one of several stars in Hollywood Canteen. In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow", picked Dantine at number 10. Warners gave him a sympathetic lead in Hotel Berlin, as the leader of the German underground. He was once again a Nazi on-the-run in Escape in the Desert, a remake of The Petrified Forest. His last role for Warners was in the film noir, Shadow of a Woman. He then left the studio. As his acting career wound down, he became a vice-president of Hollywood mogul Joseph Schenck's company, Schenck Enterprises, in 1959; Schenck was his wife's uncle. He later went to work as producer with Robert L. Lippert Productions and then as president of Hand Enterprises Inc. Among Dantine's later screen appearances, there were three films for which he was the executive producer: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Killer Elite, both directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wilby Conspiracy. He was also in The Fifth Musketeer and Tarzan the Apeman. On 2 May 1982, Helmut Dantine died in Beverly Hills from a heart attack at age 63. According to one obituary, "He specialized in portrayals of Nazis, sometimes as the handsome but icy SS sadist battling Allied heroes, sometimes as a sympathetic German soldier forced, against his better judgment, to fight".

Known For

Actor

1979
The Fifth Musketeer

as Spanish Ambassador

1975
The Killer Elite

as Vorodny

1975
The Wilby Conspiracy

as Prosecuting Counsel

1969
The File on Devlin

as Hans Raedler

1965
Operation Crossbow

as General Linz

1965
Run for Your Life

as Erich Krieger

1964
The Rogues

as Colonel von Reichert

1958
Tempest

as Shvabrin

1958
Fraulein

as Lt. Hugo von Metzler

1957
The Story of Mankind

as Marc Antony

1957
Hell on Devil's Island

as Paul Rigaud

1957
1957
Sugarfoot

as Maj. Horst von Hoffstadt

1956
War and Peace

as Dolokhov

1956
Alexander the Great

as Nectenabus

1955
The Millionaire

as Prof. Josef Marton

1954
Stranger from Venus

as The Stranger

1954
Climax!

as Daniel

1953
Call Me Madam

as Prince Hugo

1953
Guerrilla Girl

as Demetri Alexander

1951
Hallmark Hall of Fame

as Hans Raedler

1948
Studio One

as Dr. Roland Maradick

1947
Whispering City

as Michel Lacoste

1946
Shadow of a Woman

as Dr. Eric Ryder

1945
Escape in the Desert

as Capt. Becker

1945
Hotel Berlin

as Martin Richter

1944
1943
Northern Pursuit

as Colonel Hugo von Keller

1943
Watch on the Rhine

as Young Man

1943
Mission to Moscow

as Maj. Kamenev

1943
Edge of Darkness

as Captain Koenig

1943
Casablanca

as Jan Brandel (uncredited)

1942
1942
Mrs. Miniver

as German Flyer

1942
To Be or Not to Be

as Co-Pilot (uncredited)

1940
Escape

as Porter (uncredited)

Producer

1975
The Killer Elite

as Executive Producer

1974

Director

1958
Thundering Jets

as Director