Cornel Wilde

13 October, 1912

| 1.85 m

Actor

Director

Producer

Biography

Cornel Wilde

Cornel Wilde was born Kornel Lajos Weisz on October 13, 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary (now part of Slovakia) to a Jewish family. In 1920, he immigrated to New York City with his parents, Rayna (Vid) and Vojtech Béla Weisz, and elder sister, Edith. His family Anglicized their names. Kornel took the name Cornelius Louis Wilde. He spent much of his youth traveling in Europe, developing a continental flair as well as an affinity for languages. He received a scholarship for medical school, but turned it down in favor of his new love, the theatre.A natural athlete and a champion fencer with the U.S. Olympic fencing team, he quit the team just prior to the 1936 Berlin Olympics in order to take a role in a play. In 1937, he married Marjorie Heintzen (later known as Patricia Knight), and they both shaved a few years off their ages in order to get work, Wilde thereafter claiming publicly he was born in New York in 1915 while continuing to list his correct place and year of birth on government documents.Shortening his name to Cornel Wilde for the stage, he appeared in the Broadway hit "Having a Wonderful Time", but it wasn't until he was hired in the dual capacities of fencing choreographer and actor (Tybalt) in Laurence Olivier's 1940 Broadway production of "Romeo and Juliet" that Hollywood spotted him. He played a few minor roles before leaping to fame and an Oscar nomination as Frederic Chopin in Pamiętna pieśń (1945). He spent the balance of the 1940s in romantic, and often swashbuckling, leading roles.During the 1950s, his star dimmed a little, and aside from an occasional blockbuster like Największe widowisko świata (1952), he settled mainly into adventure films. A growing interest in directing led him to form his own production company with...

Movies

A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.

A police lieutenant is ordered to stop investigating deadly crime boss Mr. Brown because he hasn't been able to get any hard evidence against him. He goes after Brown's girlfriend, who despises him, for information instead.

During the 1800s, a safari guide, two elephant hunters and their crew run into trouble with the natives in the South African veld when they refuse to offer gifts to the tribesmen.