Oscar Profile #263: Paul Muni

Born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund on September 22, 1895 in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine), Chicago reared Yiddish stage actor Muni Weisenfreund became one of Hollywood’s greatest stars after changing his name to Paul Muni. He married actress Bella Finkel after appearing with her on the Yiddish stage in 1921.

Segueing from the Yiddish theater to the Broadway stage, the actor made his Broadway debut as Muni Weisenfreund in We Americans in 1926. The following year he was back in Four Walls, then made his film debut as Paul Muni in 1929’s The Valiant for which he became the first of only six actors to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for their film debut. He would be followed by Lawrence Tibbett, Orson Welles, Montgomery Clift, James Dean (in his first credited role) and Alan Arkin. He would eventually become the only one of the six to win an Oscar in the lead category. Welles’ Oscar was for Best Screenplay, Arkin’s for Best Supporting Actor.

Muni continued to alternate between Broadway and Hollywood for the remainder of his career. His 1932 film, Scarface, remains one of the most popular gangster films of all time. His landmark performance in 1933’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang earned him a second Oscar nomination. He was not nominated for his well-received performance in 1935’s Black Fury, but for the second year in a row, the Academy allowed write-ins and he came in second in the final voting behind Victor McLaglen in The Informer. The following year he won for The Story of Louis Pasteur. The year after that he was nominated for The Life of Emile Zola, while the film itself won for Best Picture.

Muni was not nominated for his highly regarded performance in 1939’s We Are Not Alone but that was fine with him. He considered that year’s winner, Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips to have given the greatest performance he’d ever seen.

The actor continued to make films through the mid-1940s but he was no longer the major star he had bene in the 1930s. An early supporter of the new medium of television, it was on TV that he made most of his appearances from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, with time out for an occasional Broadway role, most notably 1956’s Inherit the Wind for which he won a Tony.

Muni was once again an Oscar nominee for his last film,1959’s The Last Angry Man, completing the cycle he began in 1929 by becoming the only actor aside from James Dean to be nominated for Best Actor for both first and last credited roles.

The actor was last seen in an episode of the 1962 TV series, Saints and Sinners. In ill health for a number of years, Muni died of a heart disorder on August 26, 1967. He was 71. His wife Bella died on October 1, 1971 at 73.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

The impact this film had on depression era audiences, especially those who were World War I veterans, is immeasurable. Muni, in one of the screen’s great performances, plays a vet who rather than return to the old grind, explores America. Down on his luck in Georgia, he goes out to eat with a friend, not realizing the friend plans to rob the diner. Arrested and railroaded to a Georgia chain gang, he eventually escapes, rebuilds his life and is arrested again. Escaping a second time, he steals to keep alive.

The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), directed by William Dieterle

One of Muni’s two greatest “great man” performances, the actor was born just six days after the pioneering French microbiologist’s death. The film, which concentrates on Pasteur’s searches for cures for anthrax and rabies, oddly omits the most famous of his discoveries, the pasteurization of milk. Nevertheless it is a well-rounded biography with Josephine Hutchinson providing strong support as his faithful wife and Fritz Leiber properly villainess as his scientific nemesis. Muni’s Oscar win was extremely popular at the time.

The Life of Emile Zola (1937), directed by William Dieterle

Muni won a New York Film Critics’ award and another Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the great French writer and crusader who is shaken out of his complacency to take on the French government over the imprisonment on Devil’s Island of the falsely accused Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Although it was Joseph Schildkraut as Dreyfus who won the film’s only acting Oscar in support, both actors give moving, unforgettable performances. The film, which co-stars Gale Sondergaard, Gloria Holden and Donald Crisp, also won the Oscar for Best Picture.

We Are Not Alone (1939), Edmund Goulding

San the heavy makeup that he wore in most of his films, Muni gives one of his most heartbreaking performances as a gifted doctor in a loveless marriage who is falsely accused of murdering his shrew of a wife. He’s matched by Flora Robson as the wife and newcomer Jane Bryan as his son’s nanny, the woman he has come to truly love. Raymond Severn as the son and Una O’Connor as the family maid also give riveting performances. The film is based on a novel by James Hilton who co-wrote the screenplay.

The Last Angry Man (1957), directed by Daniel Mann

Muni returned to form in his last film, his first in thirteen years, earning his fifth official Oscar nomination. He plays an elderly doctor, exploited by a crass TV producer who wants to make a documentary of his life as he goes about his daily routines. David Wayne is the producer, Betsy Palmer is Wayne’s wife and Muni’s lifelong friend Luther Adler is his high society doctor friend.
Billy Dee Williams has a star-making turn as a teenager with a brain tumor and Claudia McNeil scores as his mother.