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Francis Lederer (November 6, 1899 – May 25, 2000) was a film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States. Lederer fell in love with acting when he was young, and was trained at the Academy of Music and Academy of Dramatic Art in Prague. After service in the First World War, he made his stage debut as an apprentice with the New German Theater, a walk-on in the play Burning Heart. He toured Moravia and central Europe, making a name for himself as a matinee idol in theaters in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and Germany. Notable among his... MORE

Francis Lederer (November 6, 1899 – May 25, 2000) was a film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States. Lederer fell in love with acting when he was young, and was trained at the Academy of Music and Academy of Dramatic Art in Prague. After service in the First World War, he made his stage debut as an apprentice with the New German Theater, a walk-on in the play Burning Heart. He toured Moravia and central Europe, making a name for himself as a matinee idol in theaters in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and Germany. Notable among his performances was a turn as Romeo in Max Reinhardt's staging of Romeo and Juliet. In the late 1920s, Lederer was lured into films by the German actress Henny Porten and her producer husband. Because of his good looks, it took some time for the critics to take him seriously, but his association with directors such as G. W. Pabst, for whom he did Pandora's Box with Louise Brooks, and Atlantic (both 1929), helped him overcome that problem. He was also notable in The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna in the same year. Lederer, who was billed as "Franz" at this time, easily made the transition from silent films to LESS