Ernst Lubitsch

Ernst Lubitsch (; January 29, 1892November 30, 1947) was a German-born film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch". Among his best known works are Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Heaven Can Wait (1943). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director three times for The Patriot (1928), The Love Parade (1929), and Heaven Can Wait (1943). In 1946, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture. Early life Lubitsch was born in 1892 in Berlin, the son of Simon Lubitsch, a tailor, and Anna (née) Lindenstaedt. His family was Ashkenazi Jewish; his father was born in Grodno in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), and his mother was from Wriezen outside Berlin. He turned his back on his father's tailoring business to enter the theater, and by 1911 was a member of Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. Career