Born 1907 as Géza Kárpáthi in Pöstyén, Kingdom of Hungary (now Piešťany, Slovakia), Hungarian-American actor Charles Korvin made his Broadway stage debut in 1943, playing a Russian nobleman in the play, Dark Eyes. He worked steadily through the 1940s, including appearing in three films with actress Merle Oberon. He was a victim of the blacklist around 1952, when he refused to testify before the HUAC, and his film career halted.
Turning to the newly burgeoning, and much less political, field of broadcast television, Korvin starred in early productions for Playhouse 90, Studio One, and US Steel Hour. He played The Eagle for six contiguous episodes on Disney’s Zorro and played Latin dance instructor Carlos on The Honeymooners episode “Mama Loves Mambo”.
Korvin was back on Broadway in the mid-1960s starring as the upstairs neighbor in Neil Simon’s Tony Award winning play, “Barefoot in the Park”. In 1964, he returned to Hollywood to play the ship’s captain in Stanley Kramer’s Academy Award winning film, Ship of Fools. Remaining active in later years, he was the voice of the Red Baron for eight years on television and radio ads for Lufthansa Airlines.
Korvin died in 1998 at Lenox Hill Hospital, Manhattan, New York, aged 90. Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of Charles Korvin in the 1940s and 1950s.
Remember him playing the lead role in a TV series "Interpol". Can still be seen on UK television on a "nostalgia" channel TalkingTV.
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