Erich von Stroheim

Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim (born Erich Oswald Stroheim; September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. His 1924 film Greed (an adaptation of Frank Norris's 1899 novel McTeague) is considered one of the finest and most important films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights problems, Stroheim found it difficult to find work as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema.

For his early innovations as a director, Stroheim is still celebrated as one of the first of the auteur directors. He helped introduce more sophisticated plots and noirish sexual and psychological undercurrents into cinema. He died of prostate cancer in France in 1957, at the age of 71. Beloved by Parisian neo-Surrealists known as Lettrists, he was honored by Lettrist Maurice Lemaître with a 70-minute 1979 film titled Erich von Stroheim.