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Hans Von Bredow
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born:
20 May 1875 Germany |
died:
30 May 1927 Los Angeles, California, United States of America (complications from acute alcoholism, age 52) |
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Balding, stout German actor and extra. Various sources and reports also spell his surname "Von Bradow," "Van Bredow," or "Van Bradow." Per later reports, Von Bredow was allegedly the disinherited son of a wealthy German baron, and later served as a lieutenant in the German Army. On his 1916 marriage certificate, Hans gives his name as Freiherr Hans J. Von Bredow, and his parents' names as Freiherr Johchimore [sp?] Bredow (certificate omits the "Von"; unknown if intentional) of Berlin, Germany, and Carolina Von Bredow of Brandenburg, Germany. In the 1920 U.S. Census, Hans says he immigrated to the United States in 1901. On 7 July 1909, he married Minnie (Johnson) Nelson (b. 1869; d. after 1942) in Chicago, Illinois. His death certificate (1927) claims he was in California for 13 years, putting his arrival in the "Golden State" at around 1914. In January 1916, he was arrested in Los Angeles and returned to Oakland, California, on a charge of embezzlement committed in November 1914. He reportedly stole $754.75 from his friend and employer, Ferdinand Schultz of the Hofbrau Café, where Von Bredow was employed as a steward. Von Bredow initially claimed that he was framed by a wealthy widow from Oakland whose love he had scorned, and whose name he made a show of refusing to disclose; he later claimed that his actions "was caused by a fit of mental depression due to brooding over a wound in his eye." Reports of the time mention Von Bredow's time as a German Army lieutenant and Schultz's claim that Von Bredow was a disinherited son of a wealthy German baron; at the time, Von Bredow declined to discuss his past. Schultz also said that Von Bredow had a wife (Minnie) who worked as a maid in a San Francisco hotel for the last three years, and that she helped support her husband before he began working at the Hofbrau. Von Bredow was released in June 1916 on five years' probation, having made complete restitution of the money thanks to Wilhelm Von Brincken, a member of the German Consulate of San Francisco and fellow future film actor, who served as a character witness for Von Bredow. On 16 November 1916, he married German-born Minna R. Kellogg (1867-1918), who ran a Los Angeles employment agency, in Santa Ana, California. On 26 April 1918, during World War I, he was arrested again on suspicion of being the head of a ring of German spies. It was alleged that Von Bredow used his wife's employment agency to "plant" various German spies and agents to obtain valuable information, including attempting to acquire blueprints of American artillery weapons. Minna R. Kellogg-Von Bredow, who had successfully ran the bureau for eleven years prior, initially believed in Hans' innocence, but ultimately could not live with the shame of having her own loyalty questioned (she was German-born, though she had resided in California for some years, and friends testified to her loyalty to the U.S.) nor being betrothed to a suspected enemy alien; she committed suicide on 3 May 1918 by inhaling gas from an open jet. Authorities also obtained further evidence that Von Bredow was guilty of bigamy, as he had reportedly not obtained a divorce from his previous wife, Minnie, living at 1720 Geary Street, San Francisco. Later reports add mention of a child as well; Minnie's 1918 registration affidavit mentions one son, Harold Birger Nelson (1898-1967), from a previous marriage. In mid-May, papers reported Von Bredow fiercely boasting of his predictions of German world dominance, including that Mexico would declare war on the United States within the next 12 months, and that an alliance between Germany, Japan, and Mexico would coalesce within the next two years. Von Bredow was ultimately convicted of violating his parole for the 1916 embezzlement arrest. By this time (late June), Von Bredow tried to claim that an operation to remove a bullet from his head (received in a gun duel in Germany 17 years prior) was to blame for a poor mental state including blackouts and severe headaches, even claiming that this led to him living something of a dual life and that he had no memory of marrying Mrs. Kellogg; Von Bredow also claimed to be disgusted with Germany and denied that he ever went against his adopted homeland. Judge James G. Quinn disagreed with Von Bredow's pleas for leniency, and Von Bredow was given a ten-year sentence; federal authorities requested that if the sentence expired before the end of the war, then Von Bredow be handed over to them for internment. Von Bredow began serving his sentence at San Quentin State Prison on 26 June 1918. His prison records give his personal statistics as thus: he stood 5' 10 7/8", weighed 198 lb., and had blonde hair, grey eyes, and a florid complexion. Von Bredow was ultimately paroled on 2 May 1923, after serving less than five years, and was fully discharged on 26 December 1924. (Incidentally, Wilhelm Von Brincken, who had previously helped out Von Bredow during his earlier 1916 arrest, would also be convicted of espionage activities and imprisoned for two years during World War I.) Von Bredow worked as a film extra for the last three years of his life, working for Lasky's (Paramount) and First National among other studios. On 30 May 1927, Von Bredow was found dead in his room in a boarding house at 512 West 2nd St., Los Angeles, by the landlady. Evidence in the room pointed to his death being caused by acute alcoholism; his death certificate gives his cause of death as "Sclerotic & calcified left coronary artery; Contributory - acute alcoholism." His death came nearly six months after he filmed his scenes in "A One-Mama Man," and only less than three months after the film's release. |
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Real name: Hans J. Von Bredow Height: 5'11" |
Films listed on this page: complete Hal Roach filmography. |
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