Today in Comics History, February 25: Happy birthday, Gert Fröbe!

Born today in 1913, a pretty bad time to be born German but he seems to have done eventually okay by himself*: actor Gert Fröbe, bombasting his way through movies like Goldfinger, The Threepenny Opera, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Longest Day, and Is Paris Burning?, where he appeared alongside Orson Welles. Gert 'n' Orson in the same scene: the reason CinemaScope was invented.




from "Is Paris Boring?" in MAD #113 (September 1967), script by Lou Silverstone, pencils and inks by Mort Drucker
*Although there are some pretty serious strikes against him, I believe that Fröbe was a victim to his time, location, and nationality. Wikipedia tells us that

Frobe joined the Nazi Party in 1929 at the age of 16 and left in 1937.

In September 1944, theatres in Germany were closed down and Fröbe was drafted into the German Army, where he served until the end of the war.

After his party membership became known after World War II, Israel banned Fröbe's films until, Mario Blumenau, a Jewish survivor, revealed just eight weeks later that his life and his mother's were probably saved when Fröbe hid them from the Nazis.

So, happy birthday, Gert!