Friedrich Hollaender - Life and Career

Life and Career

He was born in London, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, worked at the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Young Friedrich had a solid music and theatre family background: his uncle Gustav was director of the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, his uncle Felix Hollaender was a well-known novelist and drama critic, who later worked with Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater.

In 1899 Friedrich's family returned to Germany, his father began teaching at the Stern Conservatory, where his son became a student in Engelbert Humperdinck's master class. In the evening he played the piano at silent film performances in local cinemas, developing the art of musical improvisation. By the age of 18 he was employed as a répétiteur at the New German Theatre in Prague and also was put in charge of troop entertainment at the Western Front of World War I.

Having finished his studies, he composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt and became involved in cabaret and wrote music for the film, The Blue Angel (1930). He left Nazi Germany (because he was Jewish) and emigrated to the United States of America where he wrote the music for over a hundred films, including Destry Rides Again (1939), A Foreign Affair (1948), The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953 Academy Award nomination) and Sabrina (1954). He also wrote as "Frederick Hollander", the semi-autobiographical novel Those Torn From Earth which was released in 1941. Many of his songs were made famous by Marlene Dietrich. He can be seen as the piano accompanist in A Foreign Affair (on the songs, "Black Market", "Illusions" and "Ruins of Berlin"). He received four Academy Award nominations for composition. In 1956 he returned to Germany. He was married to Blandine Ebinger and died in Munich in 1976 and is buried in Waldfriedhof Dahlem.