Ib Schønberg
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Ib Christian Albert von Cotta Schønberg (October 23, 1902 – September 24, 1955) was a Danish film actor, and is considered one of the leading actors of Danish film in the 20th century.
The son of a chemist, Schønberg was interested in acting from early life. He made his debut in 1920 and worked for more than ten years as a stage actor, but it was film that made his career. He began as a ”fat man comic” in the 1930s and already then he was a very popular participant in more or less primitive film comedies, often in main roles as leaders of buffoon duos, well-meaning policemen, or more substantial “uncle types”. During World War II he suddenly appeared as a dramatic actor, often in sombre or sinister films, and from then until his death he maintained his position as one of the greatest actors of Danish art films, playing serious roles alongside comic roles.
His voluminous body (due to a metabolic disorder) contrasted strikingly with his normally discrete way of acting. His low voice was often loaded with undertones of kindness, pity or scorn. With effortless ease he appeared both as warm-hearted philanthropists and arrogant cynics, depressed underdogs as well as more social beings.
One of his special gifts was the ability to perform “the colossus with feet of clay”, apparently solid and superior natures - both sympathetic and unsympathetic - who are dissolved. Among his best-known serious performances are his mean-cultivated informer type in Afsporet (1942 - Derailed); his leader af a children’s home, a sadist with shattered nerves in the social film Kampen mod uretten (1949 - The Struggle Against Injustice) and his two versatile portraits of alcoholics who are destroyed in Ta’ hvad du vil ha’ (1947 – Take What You Want) and Cafë Paradis (1951). Among his many comedian roles must be noted his amiable ham actor in Biskoppen (1944 – The Bishop). In his later years he was a regular participant in the so-called “Morten Korch films” (based upon the regional novels of a very popular Danish light literate) often placed as the fatherly friend of the hero and his seria role as a widower with children in the popular Far til fire (The Father of Four) films.
Schønberg was known for his almost manic industry (in 1949 he took part in all Danish films of that year and for the last six years he appeared in almost 60 films, often in cameo roles) and was a public figure, opening exhibitions, eternally communicating to the press and a walking reservoir of ideas and projects. Though most fit for movies (neither his style, his temper nor his somewhat fluttery commitment to projects fit well together with theatrical work) he sometimes worked on stage and during his last years he was director of the "Circus Revue". His restlessness and hard work may have led to his early death.
Apart from some Swedish movies he never filmed abroad, though Hollywood, in the late 1940s, offered him the role as Martin Luther. Today he is recognised as an actor throughout Europe. But his special public popularity in his own country was probably resting upon his ability of appearing as a larger-than-life version of the Danish Mr. Everyman.
