The son of an accountant, Paul Hubschmid was born, raised and schooled
in Schoenenwerd, Switzerland. He trained for an acting career at the
Max Reinhardt Seminar of Dramatic
Art in Vienna and first appeared on stage at the Vienna Volkstheater in
1937. His motion picture debut took place the following year. He was
cast as the titular hero in the patriotic Swiss production
Füsilier Wipf (1938), which was
directed by that nation's pre-eminent film maker of the time,
Leopold Lindtberg. The role opened the
doors for the tall (1.92 m), wavy-haired and handsome actor and he soon
moved on to a more lucrative career in Germany. After a stint with the
Deutsches Theater in Berlin, he slipped effortlessly into a succession
of romantic leads opposite established stars such as
Luise Ullrich
(Der Fall Rainer (1942)) and
Hilde Krahl
(Meine Freundin Josefine (1942)).
His presence in German films during the Nazi period (though mostly in
light entertainments without significant political content) did not
prove detrimental to his spell in Hollywood, which began with a
seven-year contract in 1948. Having almost no perceptible trace of an
accent, he fitted right into the role of 'Paul Christian', the stage
name which was assigned to him for the handful of films he made in
tinseltown. Some were outright stinkers, like
No Time for Flowers (1952),
which veered uneasily between silly comedy and fruity melodrama. Best
of the bunch was the cult sci-fi
Panik in New York (1953),
which started the cycle of giant monster films in the
1950's and featured the work of renowned special effects expert Ray Harryhausen.
The film cost a mere $200,000 to make and grossed in excess of $ 5
million. With the audience attention firmly fixed on the dinosaur, the
cast seemed at times redundant. Paul, in the leading role of scientist
Tom Nesbitt, did the best he could with the clichéd script. Since no
better parts were forthcoming, Paul dissolved his contract after just
four years and returned home.
Back in Germany, he was considerably better served in the role of
composer Franz Liszt in the Franco-German
co-production
Franz Liszts große Liebe (1954);
and in a trilogy of hugely popular escapist adventure films, exotically
set in India:
Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1959),
Das indische Grabmal (1959)
and
Journey to the Lost City (1960).
Paul had aged remarkably well and was able to carry off his romantic
leading man image into the 1960's. From the beginning of the decade, he
also moved into character acting, playing Professor Higgins in "My Fair
Lady" more than 2000 times on stage, most frequently at Berlin's
Theater des Westens. On screen, he now appeared more frequently as bon
vivants, reprobates or villains, most memorable as double agent Johnny
Vulkan in
Finale in Berlin (1966), the
second of Len Deighton's Harry Palmer
trilogy. In 1980, he was awarded the German Filmband in Gold. During
the 1980's he scaled down his workload, confining himself to guesting
in made-for-television movies and series. He retired from acting in
1992 and died nine years later in Berlin at the age of 84 of a
pulmonary embolism.
