Career
Lau Lauritzen, Jr. was born 26 June 1910 in Vejle, Denmark, the son of silent film actor and director Lau Lauritzen Sr.. He pursued an education in the film industry by working at film studios in England, Germany, France, and Belgium. After returning to Denmark, he worked for his father at Palladium Film productions in multiple positions including screenwriter, cameraman, soundman, and director's assistant. In 1934, Lauritzen made his acting debut in the comedy Barken Margrethe. Earlier that same year, before he was 24-years-old, Lauritzen made his directorial debut with the 1934 farcical comedy, Ud I den kold sne (Out in the Cold Snow). Lauritzen co-directed the film with Alice O'Fredericks who had also been working as a director's assistant for Lauritzen's father at Palladium. The Lauritzen-O'Fredericks partnership flourished and they eventually made 27 films together during the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1937, Lauritzen, along with director John Olsen and Henning Karmark, established the ASA Film studio, where Lauritzen worked as the company's artistic director. At ASA, he often co-directed films, notably with the leading women directors Alice O'Fredericks and Bodil Ipsen. During the years of German occupation in World War II, Lauritzen directed 22 films through ASA Film. In 1946, Lauritzen shared with Ipsen the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for their film The Red Meadows (De røde enge) which told about Danish resistance fighters during the German occupation. The film starred Lauritzen's new wife, Lisbeth Movin, whom he had married the previous year.
Lauritzen shared with Ipsen the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film three times: In 1949, for Støt står den danske sømand (The Viking Watch of the Danish Seaman) which also starred both Lauritzen and Movin; in 1951, for Café Paradis (Paradise Cafe), which has received praise as a Danish "masterpiece"; and in 1952, for Det Sande Ansigt (The True Face), a taut psychological thriller which starred Lauritzen as an architect wrongly accused of rape and murder. In 1954, Lauritzen was again awarded the Bodil Award, this time as the sole director for his crime drama Farlig Ungdom (Dangerous Youth).
From 1945 until 1965, Lauritzen was the administrative director of ASA Film. He directed and produced his final film, Me and My Kid Brother and Doggie in 1969. During his career, Lauritzen directed 64 films, acted in 27 movies, and wrote 25 produced screenplays. Lauritzen died on 12 May 1977 and is buried in Hørsholm church cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Lau Lauritzen, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the word career:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)