Hermann Brix

Hermann Brix (1912-1982) was an Austrian actor and theatre and radio play author. Between 1939 and 1944 he starred in many Terra films. He should not be confused with the American actor Herman Brix (a.k.a. Bruce Bennett).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2995/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3230/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra Film.

Unknown mother

Hermann Brix was born in Innsbruck, Austria (then Austria-Hungary) in 1912. He studied German and medicine first, took acting lessons after that, and in 1936 he debuted on stage in Prague. Later he got an engagement at the Münchner Kammerspiele in Munich.

Brix became well-known as a film actor in German cinema during the war years, mostly at Terra-Filmkunst. He probably started his film career in the Terra production Opernball/Opera Ball (Géza von Bolváry, 1939) with Paul Hörbiger. This first film appearance was soon followed by Maria Ilona (Géza von Bolváry, 1939) in which he played Emperor Franz Joseph opposite Paula Wessely. After the premiere of this film in Vienna, he signed a contract with Terra Film in Berlin.

For Terra, Brix appeared in such films as Die guten Sieben/The Lucky Seven (Wolfgang Liebeneier, 1940) starring Johannes Riemann, and Alarm auf Station III/Alarm on Station III (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1939) starring Gustav Fröhlich.

Slowly, his parts became bigger as in Falschmünzer/Forger (Hermann Pfeiffer, 1940), Der Herr im Haus/The Landlord (Heinz Helbig, 1940) starring Hans Moser, Sein Sohn/His Son (Peter Paul Breuer, 1941), and Dreimal Hochzeit/Three times wedding (Géza von Bolváry, 1941) with Marte Harell and Willy Fritsch.

Brix had his first lead in Die Kelnerin Anna/The Waitress Anna (Peter Paul Breuer, 1941) as a young music student in Salzburg, who doesn’t know that the local waitress (Franziska Kinz) who takes so much care of him is his mother.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no A 3331/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3591/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Titanic

Hermann Brix played a band leader in the disaster drama Titanic (Herbert Selpin, 1943), and a police commissioner in the spy story Die goldene Spinne/The Golden Spider (Erich Engels, 1943). He appeared as Eva Maria Meineke’s lover in the comedy Moselfahrt mit Monika/A Trip on the Mosel with Monika (Roger von Norman, 1944). The film was completed in 1944, but submitted to Filmprüfstelle in October 1944, and it was eventually released in 1952.

His last wartime performance was in the romantic comedy Der Meisterdetektiv/The master detective (Hubert Marischka, 1944) with Georg Alexander.

After the war, Brix worked only twice as a film actor. In 1947 he appeared in the French-Austrian comedy Les amours de Blanche Neige/The Loves of Snowwhite (Edi Wieser, 1947). Three years later he played the lead in the comedy Die Erbschaft aus Amerika/Luck from Ohio (Heinz Paul, 1950). Rudi Polt at IMDb suggests that Brix was more interested in stage theatre and radio. He returned to his birth town Innsbrück where he wrote stage and radio plays.

From 1966 on he taught drama at the Universität Innsbruck and was manager of the Studiobühne. Among his pupils were Dietmar Schönherr, Axel Corti, and Volkmar Parschalk. He also directed several plays at the Tiroler Landestheater.

Hermann Brix died in Innsbruck in 1982. He was 70.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2564/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2693/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3331/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Sources: Rudi Polt (IMDb), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 12 August 2023.