- Dignified, suave leading man of German romantic melodramas of the 1930's and 40's, the son of a staff doctor and initially trained as a physician. He served as a field doctor with an artillery regiment on the western front in World War I. Wounded and invalided out of service in 1918. Took acting classes under Eduard von Winterstein in Freiburg, 1920. Ensemble member of the Hamburg Kammerspielen, 1928 to 1934. Subsequent film career, adept at playing aristocrats, senior officers or professional men of considerable stature (surgeons, concert violinists, etc). Fell out of favour with the Nazi regime in 1940 after refusing to play the title role in "Jud Süss". Resumed his career after the war as a character player, occasional stage director and translator of original French plays into German.
- Schoenhals had originally hoped to become a surgeon, but he was unable to pursue this path due to his arm injury.
- His appearance predestined him for characters of the high society and urbane lovers.
- He was occasionally a stage director and focused on translation of original French plays into German.
- Born Moritz James Karl, Albrecht Schoenhals was the son of the German General upper physician Gustav Schoenhals (1855-1930) and an English mother.
- In 1965, Schoenhals received the German Film Award for "long-standing and outstanding achievements in German film.".
- From the early 1960s onward, he also devoted himself increasingly to his personal interests, such as French literature, a field in which he was an active translator and editor.
- After WWO I he took acting lessons by the famous actor Eduard von Winterstein and made his debut at the Stadttheater Freiburg in 1920. In the next years he also worked in Frankfurt, Dortmund and Hamburg.
- After the end of World War II, he worked as a doctor at the city hospital of Baden-Baden.
- The actor Albrecht Schönhals received a musical education and was also trained as a singer. But before he was able to launch his theater and film career he volunteered for the military in 1914. Just before the end of war he sustained a slight wound.
- His career ended abruptly in 1940 when he fell out of favor with the Nazi regime for refusing to play the title role in Jud Süß, an antisemitic propaganda film. From then on, he was cast in only a few films, and was forced in 1941 to participate in a Nazi propaganda film for children entitled Kopf hoch, Johannes! (Cheer Up, Johannes!). In this film, a teenage boy is spoiled hopelessly by his mother while his father is not around. Schoenhals plays a landowner who is bothered by the boy, and he is taught a sense of camaraderie. Following the film, Schoenhals withdrew from the theater to his estate in Baden-Baden, "Annenhof.".
- In 1967, he received the Federal Cross of Merit.
- Because he refused to impersonate the title role in the movie "Jud Süss" - the role was finally interpreted by Ferdinand Marian - he only got film offers under more difficult circumstances. He appeared again on stages and went on tour with his wife.
- He was known for his considerable charm and elegant appearance. However, under the seemingly impeccable veneer his charisma-like charm, Schoenhals exhibited the capacity to play the villain, such as in the Willi Forst crime film Mazurka. In this film, he portrays a rapist who is shot many years later by his victim, played by Pola Negri. In the romance Intermezzo, Schoenhals starred as a mysterious player who exploited the plight of an opera diva, forcing her to purchase the rights to her own voice. In Veit Harlan's Tolstoy film Die Kreutzersonate, he seduced a married woman.
- He died at age 90 and was buried at a cemetery in Baden-Baden.
- He grew up in Freiburg/Breisgau and then studied medicine in Berlin. Subsequently, he worked for a Berlin charity as a doctor and then volunteered as an army doctor for the field artillery regimen to Metz on the western front during World War I. In the last year of the war, he suffered a serious wound to his arm and was invalided out of service in 1918. While recovering, he wrote his doctoral thesis and joined a volunteer corps of the Army School Döberitz.
- He played his last role in Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" (1968).
- He made his film debut in 1934 and acted successful in "Fürst Woronzeff" (1934).
- From 1956 to 1968, Schoenhals was involved in many television productions.
- In the late 1940s, he and his wife returned to the theater.
- Albrecht Schoenhals starred alongside the Divas of UFA, Pola Negri, Camilla Horn and Sybille Schmitz, as well as the "Darlings" of the Nazi leadership, Lil Dagover, Olga Chekhova and Lída Baarová.
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