S.Z. Sakall

The actor became a star of the Hungarian stage and screen in the 1910s and 1920s.

Szakall was married twice. His first wife Giza Grossner died in 1918, two years later he married Anne Kardos.

At the beginning of the 1920s, he moved to Vienna, where he appeared in Hermann Leopoldi's Kabarett Leopoldi-Wiesenthal.

In the 1930s, he was, next to Hans Moser, the most significant representative of the Wiener Film, the Viennese light romantic comedy genre.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Sakall was forced to return to Hungary. He was involved in over 40 movies in his native land.

His first American film role was in the comedy It's a Date (1940) with Deanna Durbin.

When Joe Pasternak engaged Szöke Szakall to Hollywood for his movie "It's a Date", he made use of the opportunity to leave the uncomfortable Europe. He soon gained a foothold in the USA and worked under the name S. Z. Sakall first for Universal, from 1941 for Warner Bros. which offered him appreciative supporting roles as a funny and good-matured fat person.

Hungarian-born S. Z. Sakall was a veteran of German, Hungarian and British films when he left Europe because of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. In Hollywood from shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Sakall began appearing in comedies and musicals, often playing a lovable if somewhat excitable and/or befuddled uncle, businessman or neighborhood eccentric. Memorable as the waiter in Casablanca (1942) and as a somewhat lecherous Broadway producer in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).

He was in four top movies in 1949. First Sakall played Felix Hofer in Doris Day's second film, My Dream Is Yours. Later that year, he supported June Haver and Ray Bolger in Look for the Silver Lining. Next, he played Otto Oberkugen in In the Good Old Summertime, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson. This was a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940). Finally, Sakall was given the principal role of songwriter Fred Fisher in Oh, You Beautiful Doll, though top billing went to June Haver.

On August 4, 2020, he was honored with a day of his film-work during the Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars Festival.