The eternal mystery of Max Schreck – the first Nosferatu

As the marker that once stood at his final resting place gradually disappeared, so too did most of what the world knew about the real Max Schreck. At the same time, his iconic film performances only became more vivid and captivating.

The mystique surrounding what was real and what was fantasy in that silent film has served as inspiration for other filmmakers Robert Eggers, director of The Witch And The lighthouse, of which the new adaptation of Nosferatu coming in December. His version of the story, starring Pennywise actor Bill Skarsgard—of the It films – such as Count Orlok – have a significantly more elaborate plot and a different take on the monster, but it all started with his fascination with Schreck’s performance.

As a child in the early 1990s, Eggers watched the 1922 film on a low-quality VHS tape that didn’t even have an accompanying musical score, and became obsessed with Murnau’s film and Schreck’s performance. Compared to the high-definition versions now available to stream, this transfer felt like a relic of a bygone era. “I think that’s part of the mystery for me,” says Eggers Vanity fair. “When you look at the restored versions, you see all the details and the grease paint and the bare hoods and the fake-fake-fake stuff. And in this version, made from a degraded 16 millimeter print, you couldn’t see that each of them. There were certain frames that made Max Schreck’s eyes look like cat eyes. It is the version that gave rise to the legend that Max Schreck is actually a vampire.”

The 2000 movie Shadow of the vampire played with this fanciful idea, with John Malkovitch in which he portrays a careless Murnau who casts an actual blood-sucking monster as his protagonist. William Dafoe received a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his diabolical performance as Schreck, who jeopardizes the production of the silent film by devouring members of the crew. (Nearly a quarter of a century later, Dafoe plays an ancient vampire hunter in Eggers’ new version of Nosferatu.)

It was clearly a complete fabrication. “Shadow of the vampire had a nice starting point, that was all,” says Giesen. “Almost nothing in this film was correct in terms of historical details. However, the costumes and film technology of the time were well researched.” Murnau was truly in a mad scramble to complete the film, but that was because financing was tight – not because his star was an undead predator. Sunlight doesn’t kill vampires in Stoker’s novel; the concept was invented by Nosferatu, he hastily added because Murnau had run out of resources to film the murder scene he was planning.

Shadow of the vampire screenwriter Steven Katz always knew it was ridiculous to believe Schreck was a real monster, but also felt that Schreck’s disturbing presence made it easy for the viewer’s imagination to run wild. “There is not an inch of his performance in that film that evokes the underlying humanity,” says Katz told me in 2001. “You feel like you’re looking at something you shouldn’t be looking at.”

Dafoe saw his portrayal as a playful tribute to a fellow actor, but felt bittersweet about a man so remarkable in his signature role that he was completely overshadowed by it. “There’s always a chill running down my spine,” he said after receiving his long-ago Oscar nomination. “There’s a brotherhood of actors, and somehow I feel sorry for the guy. It’s like, it’s just sad.”

An undated photo of actor Max Schreck as a young man, years earlier, is said to remain hidden beneath the gruesome Nosferatu makeup.

From Alamy.

Max Schreck’s life actually seems to have been a happy one. He was born on September 6, 1879, the second child of Pauline and Gustav, a topographer. The family lived in Berlin’s Tiergarten district, adjacent to the immense park in the center of the city, which could explain Max’s love for nature. In recent years, the digitization of old documents has shed more light on the actor. Baptismal certificates of the St. Matthew’s Church confirming that “Max Schreck” was indeed his real name. “The name ‘Schreck’ obviously fits perfectly in a horror film,” says Giesen. This was also noted in Germany: nomen is an omen.”

“He secretly took acting lessons. But it was only after the death of his father, who would have liked him to become a businessman, that he went to… Marie Seebach theater school, with financial support from his mother,” says Giesen. When Schreck began his acting career in 1901, he started out in small-town theaters and with touring companies that sent him around Germany before returning to the major urban stages. There are no records available of what he did during the First World War, but since he was almost 35 when it started, he was probably conscripted into some form of military service.