35 Facts About Paul Muni

Paul Muni started his acting career in the Yiddish theater and during the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros.

Paul Muni was highly skilled in makeup techniques, a talent that he had learned from his parents, who were actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish theater in Chicago.

Paul Muni appeared in 22 films and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor five times, winning the award for his role in the 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur.

Paul Muni starred in numerous Broadway plays and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the 1955 production of Inherit the Wind.

Paul Muni was born in 1895 as Frederich Meier Weisenfreund to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, then Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Paul Muni started his acting career in the Yiddish theatre in Chicago with his parents, who were both actors.

Paul Muni was quickly recognized by Maurice Schwartz, who signed him to perform in his Yiddish Art Theater.

Paul Muni's name was simplified and anglicized to Paul Muni.

Paul Muni's acting talents were quickly recognized, and he received an Oscar nomination for his first film, The Valiant, although the film fared poorly at the box office.

Paul Muni's second film, Seven Faces, was a financial failure.

Paul Muni soon returned to Hollywood to star in provocative pre-Code films such as Scarface and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

Paul Muni's acting went beyond the boundaries of naturalism into another kind of expression.

At the 8th Academy Awards, Paul Muni was not officially nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but he came in second on the basis of write-in votes, which were allowed that year.

Paul Muni played other historical figures, including Emile Zola in The Life of Emile Zola, for which he was again nominated for an Oscar.

In 1937, Paul Muni played a Chinese peasant with a new bride in a film adaptation of Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth.

Dissatisfied with life in Hollywood, Paul Muni chose not to renew his contract.

Paul Muni returned to the screen only occasionally in later years for such roles as Frederic Chopin's teacher in A Song to Remember.

Paul Muni then focused most of his energies on stage work, and occasionally on television roles.

Years later, in response to a question put to him by Alan King, Brando stated that Paul Muni was the greatest actor he ever saw.

At London's Phoenix Theatre on July 28,1949, Paul Muni began a run as Willy Loman in the first British production of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

Paul Muni took over from Lee J Cobb, who had played the principal role in the original Broadway production.

In 1952, Paul Muni traveled to Italy to star in Stranger on the Prowl directed by Joseph Losey, partly as an act of solidarity and support for blacklisted friends living abroad in exile.

In late August 1955, Paul Muni was forced to withdraw from the play due to a serious eye ailment causing deterioration in his eyesight.

In early December 1955, Paul Muni returned to his starring role as Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind.

Paul Muni made his final screen appearance on television, in a guest role on the dramatic series Saints and Sinners in 1962.

Paul Muni was noted for his intense preparation for his roles, especially the biographies.

Paul Muni read what he could find, talked to people who knew Darrow personally, and studied physical mannerisms from photographs of him.

Paul Muni was widely recognized as eccentric if talented: he objected to anyone wearing red in his presence, and he could often be found between sessions playing his violin.

Paul Muni was "inflexible on matters of taste and principle", once turning down an $800,000 movie contract because he was not happy with the studio's choice of film roles.

Paul Muni enjoyed reading and taking walks with his wife in secluded sections of Central Park.

Paul Muni campaigned for the reelection of President Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Paul Muni died of a heart disorder in Montecito, California in 1967 at the age of 71.

Paul Muni is interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.

Paul Muni had four official Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning for The Story of Louis Pasteur and receiving official nominations for I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, The Life of Emile Zola and The Last Angry Man.

Comedian and actor Paul Mooney took his stage name, which was his childhood nickname, from Muni.