Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger b. December 5, 1905, Vienna, Austria. d. April 23, 1986, New York, USA. by Chris Fujiwara Chris Fujiwara, the author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Johns Hopkins University Press), writes on film for The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Criterion Collection, et al. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts. His home page contains links to his online writing on film

filmography bibliography articles in Senses web resources

Otto Preminger was born in 1905 (not 1906, as usually reported), the son of a prosecutor for the Austrian Empire. Otto studied law but wanted to become an actor, and at 17 joined the company of Max Reinhardt. He rose quickly to director, was chosen to take over Reinhardt's theater on the latter's retirement, and was offered, at age 27, the post of the head of the State Theatre in Vienna. He turned it down on learning that a condition of assuming the post was conversion to Catholicism (the Premingers were Jewish, although Otto was not religious).