Raoul Aslan

Raoul Aslan was an Austrian theater actor and director of Greek-Armenian ancestry. He was born in Saloniki, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece) on 16 October 1886. His original name was Tigran Aslanyan. He moved to Vienna with his family in 1897 and became interested in acting at an early age. He made his stage debut in Hamburg in 1906 and later worked in various theaters in Germany. He joined the Deutsche Volkstheater in Vienna in 1917 and became a star actor at the Vienna Burgtheater from 1920 to 1958. He played many classical and complex roles, such as Hamlet, Mephisto, Marquis Posa, and Nathan. He was also the director of the Vienna Burgtheater from 1945 to 1948. He was the first actor to be awarded the title of Kammerschauspieler in 1929. He was listed on the Gottbegnadeten list of Joseph Goebbels as an important artist during the Nazi regime. He was married to Lotte Tobisch, a prominent actress and socialite. He died of a heart attack on 17 June 1958 in Seewalchen am Attersee, Austria. He was buried at the Friedhof Grinzing in Vienna. He is regarded as one of the greatest theater actors of the 20th century and a legend of the Vienna Burgtheater.