(1862-1930)
Born in Constantinople, Rudolph Schildkraut acted for Max Reinhardt in Germany and Austria, scoring a notable success as King Lear and appearing in German motion pictures. He immigrated to New York to become a leading man with the German-language Irving Place Theatre in 1910, after which he acted frequently in Yiddish theatre, most notably as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Schildkraut had his greatest success in Sholom Asche's God of Vengeance (1924), which he first played in Yiddish, but later performed in English for a Province-town Players production on Broadway. Schildkraut also appeared in Reinhardt's New York production of The Miracle (1924) and in Hermann Bahr's The Mongrel (1924). Schildkraut was the father of actor Joseph Schildkraut.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.