Pinkas Braun

Pinkas Braun was born on Jan 07, 1923 in Switzerland. Pinkas Braun's big-screen debut came with The Miracle of Father Malachia directed by Bernhard Wicki in 1961, strarring Christian Krüger. Pinkas Braun is known for Praying Mantis directed by Jack Gold, Jonathan Pryce stars as Christian Magny and Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice Manceau. The upcoming new movie Pinkas Braun plays is Verzauberte Emma oder Hilfe, ich bin ein Junge... ! which will be released on Oct 17, 2002.

This lean, incisive, basso-voiced Swiss actor with the unsettling mephistophelean countenance was the son of a Galician-Jewish merchant. Pinkas Braun began his chosen vocation at the age of eighteen as an extra with the Zürcher Schauspielhaus (embracing what he considered the 'order and discipline' inherent in a theatrical career). A member of the company's ensemble from 1945 to 1956, Braun featured in numerous premieres of plays by Brecht (who played a pivotal role in his training as an actor), Camus, Dürrenmatt and Frisch. Braun's personal favorite and his critically most acclaimed performance was as Shylock in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". On the screen, his looks and voice naturally predetermined him for arch villainy. At the very least, he would be cast as sinister schemers, occasionally mitigated by a charming blend of rascality. Braun found his widest audience during the 1960's in several lurid adaptations of crime thrillers by Edgar Wallace which have since acquired a substantial cult following: L'orchidée rouge (1962) (as a wealthy orchid collector and blackmail victim); La porte aux sept serrures (1962) (as the criminally insane Dr. Staletti); La malédiction du serpent jaune (1963) (Fing-Su, demonic leader of a murderous sect of Chinese snake-worshippers). At his scene-stealing best, Braun took full acting honours as the ruthless Percyval Glyde in a superbly-mounted TV mini-series, Die Frau in Weiß (1971), based on the classic novel by Wilkie Collins. As the owner of a distinctively sonorous voice he was guaranteed regular employment in radio drama or for synchronisation (notably, as William of Baskerville, chief protagonist of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"). Braun also established a reputation as a theatrical director of note and as the leading translator into German of the complete works of Edward Albee.