Name
Karl Stepanek
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1899-10-27
Deathday
1980-12-25 (81 years old)
Place of Birth
Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic]
Biography
Though born in Czechoslovakia, actor Karel Stepanek was generally regarded as a German actor due to his extensive film work in Germany (as Karl Stepanek) in the years before World War II. Stepanek fled to England in 1940, where, like many European refugee actors, he specialized in portraying Teutonic villains. He tried to stay away from out-and-out Nazi roles, but his predilection for wearing black uniforms and barking out guttural commands left little doubt as to the political preferences of Stepanek's screen characters. One of his most typical characterizations could be found in the 1946 POW drama, The Captive Heart; Stepanek also registered well as a friendlier foreigner in The Fallen Idol (1949). Commuting between London and Hollywood, Karel Stepanek continued to fight World War II, usually on the wrong side, into such '60s films as Sink the Bismarck! (1960), I Aim at the Stars (1960) and Operation Crossbow (1965).
Known For
7.885
In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as...
6.9
Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physic...
6.7
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their se...
6.835
The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cru...
7.185
Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, hero-worships his father's butler Baines. Hi...
6.375
A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer....
6.709
Jim Wormold is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenag...
5.9
During WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a t...
- 1955 Man of the Moment as Lom
- 1967 Murderers Club of Brooklyn as Dyers
- 1948 The Fallen Idol as First Secretary
- 1964 Devil Doll as Dr. Heller
- 1965 Operation Crossbow as Prof. Hoffer
- 1952 Affair in Trinidad as Walters
- 1956 Anastasia as Mikhail Vlados
- 1955 The Cockleshell Heroes as Assistant Gestapo Officer
- 1953 Never Let Me Go as Commissar
- 1953 City Beneath the Sea as Dwight Trevor
- 1960 Sink the Bismarck! as Admiral Lutjens - 'Bismarck'
- 1969 The File of the Golden Goose as Mueller
- 1937 The Bat as Attaché Baranoff / Orlovsky
- 1946 The Captive Heart as Forster
- 1943 They Met in the Dark as Riccardo
- 1949 Conspirator as Radek
- 1952 Walk East on Beacon as Alexi Laschenkov / Gregory Anders
- 1966 The Frozen Dead as General Lubeck
- 1955 Secret Venture as Zelinsky
- 1966 Sperrbezirk as Inspector Wagner
- 1955 A Prize of Gold as Dr. Zachmann
- 1969 Before Winter Comes as Count Kerassy
- 1954 Tale of Three Women as Alfred Dykemann (segment "Final Twist' story)
- 1965 Licensed to Kill as Henrik Jacobsen
- 1954 Dangerous Cargo as Pliny
- 1950 Cairo Road as Edouardo Pavlis
- 1957 West of Suez as Langford
- 1959 Operation Amsterdam as Diamond Merchant
- 1932 Five from the Jazzband as Jean
- 1931 Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf
- 1943 Tomorrow We Live as Seitz
- 1949 The Third Man as Actor at Josefstadt Theater (uncredited)
- 1949 Give Us This Day as Jaroslav
- 1953 Rough Shoot as Diss
- 1942 Secret Mission as Major Lang
- 1939 The Leghorn Hat as Felix, Diener bei Farina
- 1951 The Third Visitor as Richard Carling
- 1960 Brainwashed as Baranow
- 1965 The Heroes of Telemark as Hartmuller
- 1936 The Unknown as Manager at Regina's
- 1943 Escape to Danger as Franz von Brinkman
- 1932 Here's Berlin as Max
- 1933 A Song for You as Theo Bruckner
- 1939 War es der im 3. Stock? as Georg Kilby
- 1935 Hermine and the Seven Upright Men as Ruckstuhl
- 1935 Der Außenseiter as Otto Burian
- 1932 Spione im Savoy-Hotel as Jackson
- 1950 State Secret as Dr. Revo
- 1948 Broken Journey as Swiss Officer (uncredited)
- 1956 The Man in the Road as Dmitri Balinkev
- 1963 Aufstand der Gehorsamen as Jawor Stranski
- 1970 The Games as Kubitsek
- 1938 Narren im Schnee as Rolf Pinkenkötter
- 1933 Waltz War as Kellner Leopold
- 2003 The Heroes of Telemark: Location report from Norway
- 1960 Our Man in Havana as Dr. Braun
- 1949 Golden Arrow as Schroeder
- 1951 No Highway in the Sky
- 1939 Hotel Sacher as Franz
- 1938 Klatovští dragouni
- 1957 The Traitor as Friederich Suderman
- 1935 Na růžích ustláno
- 1935 Pozdní láska
- 1948 Counterblast as Professor Inman
- 1942 Our Film as Soviet Visitor
- 1935 The Grey Pikes Wharf as Ladewig
- 1936 Stronger Than Paragraphs as Robert Wendland
- 1939 Another Experience as Rechtsanwalt
- 1939 Three Fathers for Anna as Matschek
- 1940 Alles Schwindel as Clubdiener
- 1963 Das Kriminalmuseum ( 1 episode ) as Dr. Robert Großmann
- 1957 Overseas Press Club - Exclusive! ( 1 episode ) as Rubici
- 1959 No Hiding Place ( 1 episode ) as Professor Remi
- 1956 Armchair Theatre ( 1 episode )
