Alexander Moissi

Alexander Moissi was born on April 2, 1879 in Trieste, Austria-Hungary as Aleksandër Moisiu.

After an international childhood in Trieste, Durrës and Graz, the 20-year-old Aleksandër settled with his mother and two sisters in Vienna. He began vocal studies and applied for a drama training at the k.k. Hofburgtheater, but was rejected due to his strong Italian accent and had to confine himself to non-speaking roles. It was his performance in Molière's Tartuffe of the Burgtheater 1899/1900 season, which stunned the renowned Austrian actor Josef Kainz, playing the lead role.

His first engagement at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague followed in 1901. He went to Berlin later and soon belonged to the regular cast at Max Reinhardt's theater.

In 1903 he joined the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where he became a protégé of the influential director Max Reinhardt.

His first marriage was to Maria Moissi who was from Vienna. She founded the drama school Schauspielschule Maria Moissi Berlin where her husband also taught. They had one daughter, Beate Moissi, (born1908 ). Alexander Moissi had another daughter with Herta Hambach, Bettina Moissi (born 1923). Bettina would later marry the Jewish American art collector Heinz Berggruen in 1959. One of their two children, Nicolas Berggruen, is a billionaire financier and art collector.

Together with Rudolph Schildkraut he performed in Reinhardt's staging of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, now emphasizing his melodious speech, which despite first damning reviews finally made him a star. Moissi and the Reinhardt ensemble toured the Russia in 1911 and was acclaimed in Saint Petersburg by critic and dramatist Anatoly Lunacharsky for his interpretation of Sophocles' Oedipus.

In 1914, Moisiu acquired German citizenship to become a volunteer in World War I, and during the German Revolution of 1918-19 joined the Marxist Spartacus League.

In 1920 he played the leading part in the first performance of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann adaption of The Somonyng of Everyman at the Salzburg Festival. However, Moissi did not keep up with the German Expressionist and epic theatre movement initiated by directors like Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. He finally left Germany after the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933 and was offered Albanian citizenship by King Zog.

He was an actor and director, known for Die Königsloge (1929), Der junge Goethe (1919) and Figaros Hochzeit (1920). He was married to Johanna Terwin and Marie Urfus.

In the 20's he had more success in Russia, France, Austria and Italy than in Germany, in 1934 he applied for the Italian nationality.

The 60th anniversary of his death was remembered in Albania in 1995 with an "Artistic Year" dedicated to him; it was sponsored by the Aleksandër Moisiu Foundation.

Streets are named after Alexander Moissi in Berlin, Salzburg and Vienna, where also a monument was unveiled in 2005.