- Born
- Died
- Nickname
- Ludwig Stossel
- Born in Austria in 1883, Ludwig Stossel was an established theater presence (from age 17) in both his homeland and in Germany for decades, performing at one time or another for both Max Reinhardt and Otto Preminger. He made a handful of German silents beginning in 1926 and had moved with ease into sound pictures.
The Nazi invasion of Austria forced Stossel to emigrate to the United Kingdom in 1938. He rekindled his film career there but moved to America within a couple years. Many German and Austrian actors left their countries because of the Nazi takeover and emigrated to the US, winding up in Hollywood where they formed a sort of "colony", often being used in war-themed dramas to play either refugees or Nazi officers and officials. Stossel found a plethora of work that made use of his thick accent and benevolent countenance, his balding characters often accompanied by a monocle and handlebar mustache. He provided secondary but memorable foreign characters in such WWII classics as Casablanca (1942), Kings Row (1942), and the Lou Gehrig biopic The Pride of the Yankees (1942) as Gehrig's (Gary Cooper) father.
Firmly established in Hollywood, the amiable Stossel continued playing sweet and wise old souls throughout the remainder of his career. Particularly outstanding was his role as Albert Einstein in The Beginning or the End (1947). He also worked on TV in the 1950s and is perhaps best remembered for his long series of commercials for Italian Swiss Colony wine in which he played "that little old winemaker, me!" in Swiss costume. Married to actress Eleanore Stossel, he died in 1973 at age 89 in Beverly Hills, California.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
- SpouseEleanore Birn (performer)(June 2, 1919 - January 29, 1973) (his death)
- In the 1960s, Italian Swiss Colony wine producers chose him to be their advertising spokesman. Dressed in an Alpine hat and lederhosen, his motto was that he was "That Little Old Winemaker, Me!" in a series of commercials that spanned a decade. The irony was that Stossel in real life was a longtime connoisseur of fine wines, and would normally never have had anything to do with a low-priced, mass-produced wine such as Italian Swiss Colony.
- As the winemaker in the Italian Swiss Colony commercials, his "little old winemaker...me!" line was actually dubbed by none other than Jim Backus.
- Died on January 29, 1973 in Beverly Hills after a fall, just fourteen days short of his 90th birthday. He was cremated at Groman Mortuary in Hollywood Forever, and his ashes were sent to Vienna, Austria.
- He was driven out of Germany when the Nazis came to power because of his Jewish origin. He went to Austria and appeared in a few movies but his main activity was at the theater. He was engaged at the Raimundtheater and at the Theater in der Josefstadt.
- After Nazi Germany invaded and took over Austria in the 1938 "Anschluß , Stössel was imprisoned several times before he was able to escape Vienna and get to Paris. He and his wife, Lore Birn, eventually reached London.
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