Hans Thimig

The actor Hans Thimig came from a family which was a traditional acting one. His father Hugo Thimig (1854-1944) was a well-known actor, although his brother Hermann Thimig (1890-1982) and his sister Helene Thimig (1889-1974). So it doesn't surprise that also Hans Thimig was seized by the acting bacillus.

Hans Thimig was born on July 27, 1900 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.

From 1918 to 1924 he was engaged - under his real name - at the Burgtheater, and then moved to the Theater in der Josefstadt, managed by his future brother-in-law Max Reinhardt.

He married in 1929 the actress Christl Mardayn, and in 1945 Helene Rauch.

Hans Thimig remained loyal to the Theater in der Josefstadt until 1942. It was also thanks to him that the theatre survived the National Socialist period relatively "Nazi-free".

He was an actor and director, known for Die kluge Marianne (1943), The Long Way to You (1947) and Frühlingsstimmen (1952). He was married to Helene Rauch and Christl Mardayn.

At the end of 1944 Thimig's superiors ordered him to shoot a politically tendentious film in Berlin. Karl Hartl, the director of production at Wien-Film, advised him however just to "clear off", which he did. He withdrew to the small town of Wildalpen, where the family owned a holiday home, while Hartl covered for him and reported him sick.

From 1949 he performed again on stage in Vienna, alternating between the Burgtheater (of which he became an honorary member) the Theater an der Josefstadt and the Wiener Volkstheater.

Stage and film actor/director with long residencies at the Vienna Burgtheater and the Theater in der Josefstadt. From 1959, served as director of the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.

Hans Thimig died in 1991 in Vienna, aged 90. He left his body to science, but a memorial stands in the Vienna Zentralfriedhof.