Paul Muni - Broadway and Hollywood

Broadway and Hollywood

Muni began acting on Broadway in 1926. His first role was that of an elderly Jewish man in the play We Americans, written by playwrights Max Siegel and Milton Herbert Gropper; it was also the first time that he ever acted in English. He was signed by Fox three years later, in 1929, and received an Oscar nomination for his first film The Valiant, although the film did poorly at the box office. His second film, Seven Faces, was also a financial failure. Unhappy with the roles offered him, he returned to Broadway, where he starred in a major hit play, Counselor at Law.

In 1932, Paul Muni returned to Hollywood to star in such harrowing pre-Code films as the original Scarface and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, for which he received his second Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The acclaim that Muni received as a result of this performances so impressed Warner Brothers, they signed him to a long-term contract, "publicizing him as the screen's greatest actor."

Scarface also became one of Hollywood's first major gangster films, and was written by Ben Hecht, a leading screenwriter. The film, notes critic Richard Corliss, while a serious gangster film, also "manages both to congratulate journalism for its importance and to chastise it for its chicanery, by underlining the newspapers' complicity in promoting the underworld image."

In 1935, Muni persuaded Warner Bros. to take a financial risk by producing its first historical biography, The Story of Louis Pasteur. This became Muni's first of many later biographical roles, and in it he starred as a crusading scientist who fights derision in his native country to prove that his medical theories will save lives. Until that film, most Warner Bros. stories originated from current events and major news stories.

The sudden success of the film gave Warners "box office gold", notes Osborne. Muni won an Oscar for his performance. He then went on to play other historical figures, including Emile Zola, in The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and Juarez (1939).

In 1937, he played the starring role as a Chinese peasant, with a new bride, in The Good Earth. It costarred Luise Rainer as his humble wife; she won an Academy Award for her part. The film was a re-creation of a revolutionary period in China, and included special effects for a locust attack and the overthrow of the government. It was based on the classic novel, by Pearl Buck, of the same name. Because he was not of Asian descent, when producer Irving Thalberg offered him the role, he stated, "I'm about as Chinese as Herbert Hoover."

Dissatisfied with life in Hollywood, Muni chose not to renew his contract, and returned to the screen only occasionally for such roles as Frederick Chopin's teacher in A Song to Remember (1945). In 1946, he starred in a rare comic performance, Angel on My Shoulder, playing a gangster whose early death prompts the Devil (played by Claude Rains) to make mischief by putting his soul into the body of a judge, only to have his new identity turn the former criminal into a model citizen.

However, he focused most of his energies on stage work. Also in 1946, he appeared on Broadway in A Flag is Born, also written by Ben Hecht, to help promote the creation of a Jewish state in Israel. Directed by Stella Adler's brother and acted alongside Marlon Brando. Ten years later, in 1955-1956, he had his biggest stage success as the crusading lawyer, Henry Drummond (based on Clarence Darrow), in Inherit the Wind, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

In late August 1955, Muni was forced to withdraw from the play Inherit the Wind due to a serious eye ailment causing deterioration in his eyesight. He was later replaced by actor Melvyn Douglas. In early September 1955, Muni, then 59 years old, was diagnosed with a tumor of the left eye. The eye was removed in an operation at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. His right eye was reported to be normal. In early December 1955, Muni returned to his starring role as Henry Drummond in the play Inherit the Wind.

After one more film role as an aging doctor in The Last Angry Man (1959), for which he was again nominated for an Oscar, his failing eyesight and other health problems forced him to retire from acting. Muni was nominated six times for Academy Awards, winning once, although he appeared in only twenty-five films during his career.