Crossword-Solution: STROHEIM 8 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 13

Born of an old and distinguished Viennese family, the Baron von Stroheim was in another day one of those pictorial young officers who swaggered about the Ring Strasse, partook of café mélanges and fancifully whittled cakes at the smart confectioners’ on the Graben, sunned themselves where the bands play “The Beautiful Blue Danube” and other Strauss waltzes--in brief, lent themselves to that atmosphere, at once sprightly and sentimental, which made the fascination of prewar Vienna.

Soda-fountain attendant and groom in a stable--these two jobs are only a few of the milestones passed in the wanderings of Von Stroheim from his hereditary environment.

After the vogue of the war-picture had passed, however, Von Stroheim found himself in a plight almost as bad as that from which these pictures had delivered him.

The result was “Foolish Wives.” This picture, notable--even notorious--among screen folk for the tremendous costliness of its production, is also set apart by the fact that Von Stroheim’s activities in it were three-fold.

Was he really insensitive or did he command his face to be a mask? Afterward I heard that Von Stroheim is quite aware of the personal odium with which his professional characterisations of brutal German officer and villainous foreign aristocrat have surrounded him.