Auer, Misha

Misha Auer was born in St. Petersburg on November 17, 1905 . His mother was Zoya Lvovna Auer (married Unkovskaya, 1875-1918), the eldest daughter of Leopold Auer , a famous violinist and conductor. The husband left Zoya Unkovskaya in 1903 , leaving for Germany to marry her younger sister Maria. ^[2] Usually in the biographies of Misha Auer it is written that his father, a naval officer, died in the Russo-Japanese war. ^[3] Semyon Ivanovich Unkovsky, the husband of Zoe Auer and the son of Admiral I.S. Unkovsky , was indeed a naval officer, but he died in 1921 . ^[2]

Soon after the start of mass emigration, along with a stream of refugees, twelve-year-old Mikhail and his mother in 1918 find themselves in Constantinople. Zoya Leopoldovna took care of the sick in a Russian hospital. There she contracted typhoid and died. Misha begins to wander and somehow he manages to leave for Italy, where he was accidentally met by a former student of his eminent grandfather. She took him to the Russian embassy. From there, a request was sent to the United States Leopold Auer . Soon, Misha was on a ship sailing to America. There, senior Auer took him into the family and raised him.

Mikhail Auer graduated from the New York School of Ethical Culture in violin and piano, but chose an acting career. At the age of 20 he played a cameo role in the Broadway production based on the play “Wild Duck” by G. Ibsen .
A few years later, his grandfather arranges Misha through his friends debut in the movie.

He began his theatrical career at the Jewish Theater of Berta Kalisch in Yiddish in New York (1926-1928) ^[4] . The debut of Misha Auer took place in 1928 in Frank Tatl’s film “Something Always Happens.”

In the movie, he often played the role of Mad Russian. At first, mostly only episodic roles, sometimes starring in fifteen films a year. For the first time, the audience remembered the movie “Indian Clive”, where he played the local tyrant ruler. And the very next year he was nominated for an Oscar for the role of Carlo in the film My Servant Godfrey . Starring were William Powell and Carol Lombard .

Auer often got small roles. But almost always starred with stars of the first magnitude. He went on the same set with Greta Garbo and Frederick March in Anna Karenina, Carol Lombard and Fred McMurray in the movie Princess Crosses the Ocean , Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart in Destry Again in the Saddle , Dina Durbin in several films, Helen Broderick and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in The Wrath of Paris, Janet MacDonald and Eddie Nelson in Beloved , Ginger Rogers in the movie “Lady in the Night,” Toto in the movie “What Happened to Toto Tiny?”, John Wayne and many others .

He was invited to star in Orson Welles and Frank Capra . Misha Auer has starred in more than one hundred and seventy films.

• First wife (1931-1940) - Norma Tillman; son Anthony and adopted daughter Zoe (Zoe).
• Second wife (1941-1950) - Joyce Hunter, two adopted children.
• The third wife (1950-1965) is Susan Kalish (1929—?), Daughter Michelle (married to Litvinov, born 1951).
• The fourth wife (1965-1967) - Elise Soul.

Misha Auer died of heart disease in Rome in 1967. Buried in the United States in New York .

1937 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the film My Servant Godfrey .

• Misha Auer at the Internet Movie Database
• Leopold Auer and his family in memories and letters
• Russian Hollywood
• Misha Auer on Cinema Diary