Rudolf Platte

Vocation

German actor who made his debut in 1925 as Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in Düsseldorf. Two years later he moved to Berlin, where he together with Werner Finck and Hans Deppe founded the cabaret Die Katakombe. From 1929 onwards, Platte performed in more than 200 film roles, embodying the shy and underestimated, likeable "Little Man". In 1940 he succeeded Ralph Arthur Roberts as director of the Theater in der Behrenstraße in Berlin (right beside the present-day Komische Oper) until its final closure in 1944. From 1945 to 1947 he directed the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, which in 1954 became home of the Berliner Ensemble theatre company. After World War II, Platte continued his film career in West Germany, performing in numerous comedies as well as in literary film adaptions, later also on television, and still successfully appeared on stage in Berlin. In 1942 he married the actress Georgia Lind (his second wife). The couple divorced shortly afterwards, but remarried in 1954. He died on 18 December 1984. Link to Wikipedia biography