Heinrich Schnitzler (1902–1982)

Heinrich Schnitzler, later known as Henry, was born in Hinterbrühl, Austria. His parents, Olga Gussmann and Arthur Schnitzler, the doctor/writer, married the year after he was born. He had a sister, Lili Schnitzler Capellini, who died by suicide in 1928. Heinrich grew up in Vienna among the writers and intellectuals of his family circle. After taking acting lessons from Franz Herterich, he made his stage debut at the Raimund Theater in Vienna in 1921. He also studied philosophy, art history. and literary history at the University of Vienna. He worked in Berlin from 1923 to 1932. In 1932, he returned to the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, where he also became a playwright and director. After Nazi Germany's Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in 1938, he was in danger as a Jew, and fled to the USA. There he directed on Broadway and in 1941, joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. He was a founding member of its Dramatic Arts Department, where he taught acting, directing, and theater history, and staged contemporary plays, including those by Brecht and Ibsen. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1948 to help found the theater department at UCLA. In 1957, he returned to Austria and directed plays at the Josefstädter Theater; he served as deputy director of the theater from 1959. He worked on several European stages as a guest director. In 1963, he received the Kainz Medal from the city of Vienna. He was executor of his father's literary estate and published his autobiography and collected works with correspondence.