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Vol. I · 2026
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Tier B
Cinema & TV · USA · Empire

Erich von Stroheim

Эрих фон Штрогейм

Vienna-born film director and actor of Greed and La Grande Illusion (1885-1957)

🇺🇸 Fame: USA🇷🇺 Origin: Empire🔗 Connection: Ancestry🗣 Russian: Yes
EV
Profile #304
ProfessionDirector
Russian originVienna; father from Gleiwitz (Prussian Silesia), mother from Prague - no Russian Empire link documentedEmpire
ConnectionAncestryBenno Stroheim & Johanna Bondy
RussianYes
CategoryCinema & TVTier B
Biography

Erich von Stroheim — director with roots in the Empire

Erich von Stroheim. Vienna-born film director and actor of Greed and La Grande Illusion (1885-1957). No documented connection to the Russian Empire. Born Erich Oswald Stroheim in Vienna in 1885 to Benno Stroheim, a Jewish hatmaker from Gleiwitz in Prussian Silesia, and Johanna Bondy from Prague; in America he presented himself as an Austrian aristocrat.

Russian Connection

Tracing the roots — Vienna; father from Gleiwitz (Prussian Silesia), mother from Prague - no Russian Empire link documented

No documented connection to the Russian Empire. Born Erich Oswald Stroheim in Vienna in 1885 to Benno Stroheim, a Jewish hatmaker from Gleiwitz in Prussian Silesia, and Johanna Bondy from Prague; in America he presented himself as an Austrian aristocrat.

Family Tree
Subject
Erich von Stroheim🇺🇸 USA
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Parents
Benno Stroheim
Johanna Bondy
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Origin
Vienna; father from Gleiwitz (Prussian Silesia), mother from Prague - no Russian Empire link documented🇷🇺 Empire
Historical context
Russian Empire · c. 1721–1917
Map of the Russian Empire

Vienna; father from Gleiwitz (Prussian Silesia), mother from Prague - no Russian Empire link documented. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.

Map: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Key Achievements

A career defined by ambition

01
Directed Foolish Wives (1922), Greed (1924) and The Merry Widow (1925)
02
Played Rauffenstein in La Grande Illusion (1937) and Max von Mayerling in Sunset Boulevard (1950)

"The von in my name stands for the chains I wear."

Erich von Stroheim
Russian diaspora
Sources