Biography

A Czechoslovakian citizen, born in Germany, who went on to become a British subject

Ironically fled Nazism in 1930s Germany only to be stereotyped as fearless, imposing-eyed Kommandants in British war pictures; later played doctors, kings and cabinet ministers as well.

Best remembered for his role as the cynical analyst of schizophrenic ventriloquist Michael Redgrave in the classic thriller Dead of Night (1945).

Played most of the Shakespearean leading roles and notable for his portrayal of Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice." His Othello has been deemed one of the most definitive--alongside Paul Robeson and Laurence Olivier, despite the fact that he spoke the lines with a thick Czechoslovakian accent.

Shortly before the Nazis seized power, Valk left Germany and went to Prague, where he found an engagement at the Deutsches Theater for the 1932/33 season. After the Wehrmacht invaded Prague in 1939, Valk, who had now acquired Czech citizenship, fled to England. Because of this fact, when the war broke out in early September 1939, he was not interned as an enemy alien, but was given the opportunity, now under the anglicized name Frederick Valk, to play all kinds of stereotypical Nazis in a series of British propaganda films, sometimes in tiny roles.