Anecdotes

Nominated for an Oscar for his role of the kidnapped diplomat Van Meer in Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film Foreign Correspondent (1940). During filming, his dialogue had to be spelled out phonetically for him, as he spoke almost no English .

In the following years his reputation increased in such a way that at the beginning of the 20th century he was regarded as one of the most important players. So it was the more important that Bassermann was also one of the first prominent actors who decided to appear in movies. This had a signal effect to other theater actors which until then were in the habit of turning up one's nose as soon as the medium film was mentioned.

Annija Simsone who played opposite Bassermann in the Neue Wiener Buehne Theater in the 1920s wrote the following in her autobiography: "During the Hitler era, Bassermann did not perform in Germany, though Adolf Hitler personally held him in high regard; Elsa - his wife - was Jewish. Bassermann was told that if he wanted to continue to perform in Germany, he would have to get divorced. He did not get divorced, but Elsa and he went to Switzerland instead.

His illustrious career was acknowledged when he received the Iffland-Ring from the prominent actor Friedrich Haase. While Bassermann himself attempted to bestow the Iffland-Ring, he outlived each of the three grantees he chose. Not wanting to be mistaken a fourth time, Bassermann deferred making a choice; instead, a group of German actors made the decision.

Of him, the revered American actress Uta Hagen had this to say in her acting textbook Respect for Acting.: "One of the finest lessons I ever learned was from the great German actor Albert Basserman. I worked with him as Hilde in The Master Builder by Ibsen. He was already past eighty but was as 'modern' in his conception of the role of Solness and in his techniques as anyone I've ever seen or played with. In rehearsals he felt his way with the new cast. (The role had been in his repertoire for almost forty years.) He watched us, listened to us, adjusted to us, meanwhile executing his actions with only a small part of his playing energy. At the first dress rehearsal, he started to play fully. There was such a vibrant reality to the rhythm of his speech and behavior that I was swept away by it. I kept waiting for him to come to an end with his intentions so that I could take my 'turn.' As a result, I either made a big hole in the dialogue or desperately cut in on him in order to avoid another hole. I was expecting the usual 'It's your turn; then it's my turn.' At the end of the first act I went to his dressing room and said, 'Mr. Basserman, I can't apologize enough, but I never know when you're through!' He looked at me in amazement and said, 'I'm never through! And neither should you be.'".

Appeared in four Oscar Best Picture nominees: Foreign Correspondent (1940), Madame Curie (1943), Since You Went Away (1944) and The Red Shoes (1948).

Albert Bassermann belongs to the great character actors of the German silent movie. Since 1887 he worked at theaters and went to Berlin in 1895, the center of the German theater world.