Otto Tausig


Otto Tausig was an Austrian writer, director and actor. Although he usually appeared in German language films, he also played in English language films such as Love Comes Lately, and in French language films such as La Reine Margot and Place Vendôme.

Life and career

Tausig was the son of Jewish female author Franziska Tausig. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, she managed to send 16-year-old Otto to England in answer to an advertisement for factory workers which had been posted in The Times. She perished in the ensuing Holocaust, but he was spared.
Tausig returned to Austria in 1946 and enrolled in the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. In 1948 he began as an actor, director and chief editor at the New Theatre in the Scala.
The New Theatre closed in 1956, after which Tausig worked at the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne in East Berlin, as a screenwriter and director of satirical short films of DEFA, the so-called "Das Stacheltier". In 1960 he moved to Zurich to work at the Schauspielhaus as a free-lance actor and director. A decade later, Tausig was an ensemble member and director at the Vienna Burgtheater, where he was active until 1983.
Tausig also worked as a freelance artist throughout the German-speaking world, and taught courses at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. He frequently wrote and directed German television films. He was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering, his ashes are buried in Vienna Central Cemetery.

Awards