Rudolf Klein-Rogge

Friedrich Rudolf Klein (24 November 1885 – 29 May 1955), better known as Rudolf Klein-Rogge, was a German film actor, best known for playing sinister figures in films in the 1920s and 1930s as well as being a mainstay in director Fritz Lang's Weimar-era films. He is probably best known in popular culture, particularly to English-speaking audiences, for playing the archetypal mad scientist role of C. A. Rotwang in Lang's Metropolis and as the criminal genius Doctor Mabuse. Klein-Rogge also appeared in several important French films in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Biography Friedrich Rudolf Klein was born in Cologne, Germany on 24 November 1885. His father, Hermann Rudolf Klein, was a military lawyer who served as (the equivalent of Judge Advocate General) for the 15th Division of the Prussian Army, garrisoned at Cologne. His mother, Maria Bertha Emma Rose, was the daughter of a prominent landowner in Lichteinen, East Prussia. The elder Klein hoped his son would follow him into a military career and entered him in one of the elite Prussian cadet academies (possibly nearby Bensberg). These institutions were famous for their harsh discipline and dedication to Spartan ideals; many of Germany's most renowned 19th and 20th century military leaders attended such schools. On his deathbed, however, Klein-Rogge confided to a friend that when a teacher went after him he ran away from school. Traveling by night and hiding during the day, the boy returned home only to be told by his father that he was a and from henceforth he was the "black sheep" of his family. His father's premature death in 1896 ended Klein-Rogge's tenure at the cadet school and he entered a local humanistic gymnasium in Cologne. One of his childhood friends was future film composer Gottfried Huppertz, who was to write the scores for Lang's Die Nibelungen as well as Metropolis. Huppertz dedicated his first composition, ["Climbing Roses"], to Klein-Rogge.) It was likely the actor who introduced his old friend to Lang.