|
Register Now!
|
|
Register now for vtap for the fastest and easiest way to watch web video on your mobile device!
|
|
Leonid Kinskey (April 18, 1903 - September 8, 1998) was a Russian-born movie and television actor who enjoyed a long career.
Kinskey was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He fled the Russian Revolution and acted on stage in Europe and South America before arriving in New York City in 1921. He joined the road production of Al Jolson's musical Wonder Bar, before making his first film appearance, in the 1932 Trouble in Paradise. His looks and accent helped him land supporting roles in numerous movies, including Duck Soup and Nothing Sacred, and on television, well into the 1960s. It is said that he got perhaps his best-known role, Sascha in Casablanca, because he was a drinking buddy of star Humphrey Bogart. Kinskey was in the pilot episode for Hogan's Heroes, but turned down a regular role in the series because he thought the premise was too absurd and unfunny to succeed.
Kinskey was married three times. His second wife was actress Iphigenie Castiglioni, to whom he remained married until her death in 1963. He was married to Tina York from 1983 to his death. He died of complications of a stroke in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
Leonid Kinskey, originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, performed across Europe and much of Latin America before his arrival in the United States. By 1932 he landed a small role as a radical in Ernst Lubitsch's comedy, Trouble in Paradise (1932). The next year he played an agitator in Duck Soup (1933). He went on to play small parts, nearly always foreigners and often comedic, in over sixty films, including Genflou in Misérables, Les (1935), the snake charmer in the well-known scene from Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The (1935), an Arab in Garden of Allah, The (1936), Ivan In Big Broadcast of 1938, The (1938), and Pierre in That Night in Rio (1941). His final film role was Dominiwski in Man with the Golden Arm, The (1955). Kinskey's most famous role was as Sascha, the humorous bartender at Rick's Cafe Americaine, in Casablanca (1942). The part had originally been given to Leon Mostovoy; Kinskey replaced him because (1) he was funnier than Mostovoy, and (2) by his own testimony, he was a drinking buddy of the star Humphrey Bogart. His contract guaranteed him two weeks at $750 a week. He died on 8 September 1998, in Fountain Hills, Arizona, aged 95.