Trivia

Had one son with his first wife Eva Steinmetz, Michael Paryla, who died 1965.

He had 3 children with his second wife, the actress Hortense Raky, daughter Veronika, b. 1940, son Nikolaus Paryla b. 1939, and son Stephan Paryla, b. 1948.

Austrian stage actor/director with strong communist leanings. The son of a civil servant, he was trained at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and began on stage in 1924. After acting in German theatres, he had long residencies at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna (1933-38) and at the Schauspielhaus Zürich 1938-45, also staging classic plays. Co-founder after the war of the left-wing Neue Theater in der Scala (1948-56), subsequently affiliated with the East Berlin Deutschen Theater (1956-61) and in films with Defa. For some time, he was blacklisted in the West, though regularly active there again by the mid-60's.

The actor Karl Paryla had his greatest successes on the stage, he only appeared seldom in movies.

Paryla is credited as one of the actors that made the Schauspielhaus Zürich "the best theatre in Europe".

He continued his theater career after the war also appeared in front of the camera time and again.

Paryla was praised for his realism in acting, especially in Johann Nestroy's plays, and as a director for his dynamic mise-en-scene.

He worked with Bertolt Brecht and played the role of Schweizerkas in the first performance of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children.

In Zurich, he contributed to the reputation of the Schauspielhaus Zürich as an anti-fascist exile theater, performing in original productions and stagings of classical plays, and he played a central part in the development of realistic drama based on the work of Constantin Stanislavski.

He had over 90 roles during World War II at the Schauspielhaus in Zürich, performing in classical tragedy (the titular character in Oedipus the King) and comedy (Orgon in Tartuffe).

He is remembered also for his work ethic and his fervent belief in the emancipatory power of the theater.

He was fired in Darmstadt in 1933 for political reasons and fled to Vienna, where he found work with the Theater in der Josefstadt. After the Anschluss he emigrated to Switzerland.

With Wolfgang Heinz and Emil Stöhr, Paryla was a founding member, from 1948 to 1956, of the "Neue Theater in der Scala", a "workers' theatre" financially supported by the Communist Party of Austria. The theater aimed to be a working man's group with a focus on the work of Austrian dramatist Johann Nestroy, on political drama, and on comedy, an unfavorable mix during the Cold War.

After World War II ended he was one of the first actors to return to Vienna, in December 1945.

His sons Nikolaus and Stephan Paryla followed his footsteps and went on the the tradition of acting.

Like many blacklisted actors and directors, he went to work in East Germany and began making movies for DEFA; his first was Mich dürstet, a film based on the Spanish Civil War. At the same time he continued to perform, in Berlin and Munich, with notable roles including Touchstone (As You Like It) and Mephistopheles (Faust), and above all as a Netroy actor.

He trained at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, and began a career as an actor with the Raimund Theater in Vienna (some of his siblings, including Emil Stöhr, also had theatrical careers) in 1924 and by 1926 was working in theaters in Germany, where he also became involved with communist workers' organizations.

An actor trained in the school of Constantin Stanislavski, he is praised for the realism he brought to his performances especially in Johann Nestroy's plays and for his ability to organize large ensembles dynamically on the stage.

A lifelong, dedicated communist, his career in the Austrian theater was first interrupted by the Second World War, and then strained by Cold War politics.

Born Catholic, he dropped his religious affiliation in 1922.

While Vienna was still divided between the West and the Soviet Union, he also worked in cinema, at the Rosenhügel Filmstudios. When the Soviets left Austria in 1955, he was blacklisted with many others who had worked for Rosenhügel.

Paryla was born to working-class parents; his father was an instrument maker, and a lower officer and civil servant in the administration of Austria-Hungary.

In 1952 already he had been prevented by American pressure from participating in the Salzburg Festival, where he was an annual regular; Paryla was supposed to have performed in Jedermann.