John van Dreelen:
Hollywood's High-Flying Dutchman
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Lobby card from "Monte Carlo Baby" (1951)
John van Dreelen is one of the best-remembered film and TV bad guys of the 60's and 70's. His smooth charisma and distinctive Dutch accent kept him in worldwide demand throughout a career that spanned more than 40 years, beginning with youthful romantic leads and extending to aging character parts. Undoubtedly his legacy will be the scores of villainous roles he created; in the post-war spy-crazed TV culture, van Dreelen became the quintessential urbane sadist, and his turns as unrepentant Nazis, aristocratic dictators, and cold-blooded Iron Curtain assassins are without peer. However, there was much more to this versatile international star, as we shall see.
Born on May 5, 1922 to the celebrated Dutch actor Louis Gimberg and the French baroness deLabouchere, van Dreelen may have come by his debonair countenance with a bit of help from his continental pedigree. Despite his mother's desire that he join her family's well-established porcelain business, young Jacques Gimberg chose his father's profession, and he struggled through small stage productions until the Nazis occupied Holland and he was interned at Papanburg concentration camp. Assigned to grueling street construction, he took a chance to instead join a performers' troupe, and after one fateful performance he grabbed a uniform from the audience coat-check room and escaped in the disguise he would later wear so often on both the big and small screen.
Occasionally, van Dreelen faced accusations in the tabloid press that he entertained his captors while fellow prisoners suffered at hard labor. He believed, however, that he was right to reject a prison job that built up the Nazi empire when given the rare chance to take a more benign one. Fellow survivors also rushed to his defense, including his agent Walter Kohner's wife Hanna, whose trials in concentration camps across Europe became well known after the war. To them, van Dreelen's escape was a pillar of cunning, gritty defiance.
After the war, van Dreelen's fluency in Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian allowed him to get work all over Europe. Most notably, in 1951 he played the unknown Audrey Hepburn's husband in "Monte Carlo Baby," which was shot in both French and English, with Hepburn and van Dreelen being two of only a few actors common to both versions. (Hepburn's quick subsequent rise to fame resulted in star billing for the brief role -- see the lobby card above.)
Like other actors throughout Europe, van Dreelen struggled with his feelings about Germany in the years immediately following its defeat, and he reluctantly accepted roles there when no others were available. Despite his distaste, he starred in the 1952 film "Rote Rosen, Rote Lippen, Roter Wein." One of that era's "heimatfilms," which featured much traditional German costuming, music, and scenery in an attempt to show the country in a positive, pre-Nazi light, "Rote Rosen" actually takes place during the war, and van Dreelen plays a German captain involved in a home-side romance. The war itself is portrayed as distant and anonymous, and his character's innocence in the role is a notable contrast to all the starkly evil Nazi officers he would play over the coming decades.
Van Dreelen was convinced that ultimately he could only achieve his dreams in America (a belief his father shared), and he tasted success there during an early appearance on Broadway that also allowed him to play his first few roles on American television. In London Laurence Olivier had invited him to co-star in a 1950 production of "Daphne Laureola" (urging him to change his stage name from Jack Gimberg), and following a tour of England the play landed briefly in New York. But complicated and restrictive immigration procedures made it impossible for him to stay in America, and he returned to Europe and continued playing small stage and film roles throughout the decade.
In 1958 van Dreelen played a small part in another WWII film, Douglas Sirk's "A Time to Love and a Time to Die," which was filmed in Europe. This was his American film debut, and Dutch movie posters featured him as co-star though he only had one brief scene. (He played his first English-speaking Nazi thug, barking orders to other soldiers from atop a locomotive.) He was memorable enough in the role to secure Sirk's help in emigrating to America, and he and his wife Jane settled in Los Angeles. Sirk (a fellow Dutch emigre) introduced him to Paul and Walter Kohner, who would become his lifelong talent agents there.
The Kohners devised a strategy of placing him in good roles on minor TV shows, building his stature, and then going after the more prestigious ones, a tactic that they essentially followed throughout the 1960s. Van Dreelen signed with Warner Brothers and turned up very frequently on the studio's stable of popular private eye and action shows (including "77 Sunset Strip" and "Hawaiian Eye"), appearing on nearly 20 of them in less than four years. (A couple of chances to star in a series of his own fell through, including "Solitaire," about a European detective working in Los Angeles.) He also played small parts in some forgotten "B" movies, but one larger film role gave his profile a boost and established him as Hollywood's leading Nazi-sophisticate. He played the title character in "The Enemy General," a minor 1960 Van Johnson vehicle that provided van Dreelen with much screen time, helping to catapult him into greater notoriety in the U.S. Though he wasn't star-billed, his face was prominently featured in print advertising, and his nuanced depiction of a defector escorted by Johnson was noticed by, among others, the New York Times: "[his] portrait of an intelligent, resourceful, and personable S.S. general may make you wonder if the picture will end with the Germans winning the war."
In 1962 van Dreelen achieved a career highlight by scoring the lead in one of the original U.S. touring companies of Broadway's "The Sound of Music," filming many of his early 60's TV shows around the show's schedule. He received above-the-title billing alongside his leading ladies, alternately Barbara Meister and Jeannie Carson, and discovered newfound legitimacy and star stature in a role that provided a rare outlet for talents such as musicality and the ability to portray romantic and fatherly traits. His association with the musical ended in bitter disappointment, however, when van Dreelen learned the film role, which he thought he had secured, had gone instead to Christopher Plummer. One of the actor's prized possessions was a letter from Richard Rodgers telling him he was the composer's favorite Captain Von Trapp, and that Rodgers had chosen him for the movie. He also recalled director Robert Wise coming to a West Coast stage performance and assuring him backstage that the film would star him...and Audrey Hepburn. (Years later, after van Dreelen's death, Wise did not recall considering him, and production notes listing many potential movie leads do not include the actor's name.)
In the early 60's van Dreelen and his wife divorced, and he acknowledged in later years that he became something of a playboy, pursuing both starlets and fast cars. He left Warner Brothers and settled into life as a journeyman free lance TV guest star, becoming a familiar villain on the war, crime, and fantasy circuits. He appeared often on such fare as "12 O'clock High" (in a record five guest shots), "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Wild, Wild West" (appearing once without the hairpiece that enhanced his trademark combover), "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and other shows that called for a weekly foil for the regular heroes. In van Dreelen's favor, the fantasy genre in particular has been one of the most widely syndicated, and remains a defining element of 60's pop culture. One highlight was his tour de force opposite Martin Landau in the 1964 "Twilight Zone" episode "Jeopardy Room," a cat-and-mouse thriller in a confined set that accentuated the acting talents of the two men. The ultimate van Dreelen guest performance, though, may be his turn as the dictator-of-the-week on a 1967 episode of "Mission: Impossible" called "The Diamond"; his arrogance, greed, and brutality unfold with magnificent elegance as the team dupes him into believing they can duplicate the precious stones. (In addition to his busy American TV schedule, van Dreelen starred in a 1967 German series called "Von 0 Uhr 1 Bis Mitternacht" as Interpol detective Mark Lissen, as well as the 1969 Dutch series "De Kleine Zeilen [The Small Souls]", based on the Couperus novel.)
Though most of van Dreelen's early 60's TV parts were significant, and the publicity machine made some effort at planting his name in fan publications, Warners billed him irregularly and never consistently developed his stature as a "name" actor. Poor billing would dog him through the middle 60's; even as late as 1965 he received terrible "featured" player billing after the guest stars on an "I Spy" episode in which he played the leading male guest role (which despite the humiliation was one of his favorite parts). But in the latter half of the 1960's he finally joined the elusive A-list, with reliable star billing, though he always was a "working actor" first and not averse to taking a secondary guest role if it kept the work coming.
Part of van Dreelen's A-list breakthrough may have come from the most important of his rare American film appearances, which hit about the time his standing changed on television. Ironically, it didn't come as a "bad guy" at all; its importance to his career is as much due to its contrast with his other roles as to its own stature as a major part in a big-budget A-movie. In 1966, van Dreelen shared almost 15 consecutive minutes on-screen with Lana Turner during a segment of the episodic tearjerker "Madame X." Following her banishment from the ritzy life she enjoyed as a diplomat's wife, Turner's character drifts to Europe, where she is rescued from despair by a benevolent Danish concert pianist, played by a bleached-blond van Dreelen. All of Turner's leading men in the film were TV-issue (John Forsythe, Ricardo Montalban, Burgess Meredith) and though van Dreelen didn't receive their billing, his role was significant and provided him love scenes with one of Hollywood's legendary actresses. Their interlude (scored by Frank Skinner to the haunting melody from Liszt's "Consolation No. 3") has a nostalgic, dreamy quality, and van Dreelen is quite effective as a tortured but optimistic Dane who can't overcome Turner's demons. Though van Dreelen complained that much of his film career was left on the cutting-room floor, this part stayed intact, which is remarkable given the film's episodic structure. While not critical to the plot, their scenes together add much texture and pathos to the overall film. According to van Dreelen, their chemistry was matched off-screen as well.
Unfortunately, "Madame X" has not taken an anointed place among the lists of Hollywood's "Best," and so it would be with all of the American films van Dreelen appeared in. Ross Hunter threw him a bone with a small part at the end of the disastrous 1973 musical remake of "Lost Horizon" (he utters the last line: "I believe [in Shangri-La]...because I want to believe"), and though he had a fairly large role in 1980's "The Formula" (the best of which, he complained, was cut out), that film is solely remembered as Marlon Brando's embarrassing return to the screen after a several-year absence. "Von Ryan's Express" (1965), in which van Dreelen got to shoot down Frank Sinatra, is his only film that is well-remembered, but he appears briefly and speaks only German. His role in 1969's "Topaz," which is regarded as one of Hitchcock's worst, was cut to a mere bit (with billing to match), with van Dreelen carrying his bitterness through almost every subsequent recollection of his career.
Apropos of his spotty film career, the only English-language film in which his name was billed on the American-issue movie poster was a 1976 independent sex-spy film, "Too Hot To Handle," and it's spelled wrong (as "van Dreelan")! (Though the "van" is often capitalized in TV and film credits, his own signature lower-cases it, which would seem to settle that matter.) Mitigating this insult, he's listed (with correctly spelled name) in the on-screen credits as a Special Guest Star, but this bizarre S&M appearance features more of him than is called for, and aside from acknowledging his overall stature (and buffness) at this point in his middle fifties, it is not a highlight. The last American film he would make was the 1986 Tom Hanks comedy "The Money Pit," playing a final-scene cameo as Maureen Stapleton's husband, who happens to be Hitler's ex-pool man. A bright and funny bit shot like a star cameo (and trimmed of course), it capped an American film career noted for Nazi roles with a comedic turn in a Spielberg-produced A-movie...that turned out to be another bomb.
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Though in America it's hard not to analyze an actor's career without weighing his success in movies, van Dreelen's great legacy remains his TV work. Throughout the 70's he continued his life as a "day player," but following a return to Europe in the early 70's his American TV career hit a brief rough spot, and the casting calls almost stopped. He appeared only one time during the '73-'74 season, on his first of two "Six Million Dollar Man" episodes; though he was well-billed and prominent on that show, the two he did during the '74-'75 season, "Barnaby Jones" and "Police Story," gave him minor parts and embarrassingly poor billing that might otherwise have indicated the end of a career. The "Barnaby Jones" snub was particularly rough, considering that throughout the 60's he had been a mainstay on producer Quinn Martin's shows "12 O'clock High" and "The F.B.I."
This slump may have been due to van Dreelen's erratic travel patterns in the early 70's, during which he expanded his options in Europe, and top-lined a "My Fair Lady" revival in Amsterdam. (American casting directors had short memories, and they didn't care much about Dutch stage successes.) Van Dreelen was hardly the only 60's stalwart who suffered during the 70's; new performers emerged, and series plots began focusing more on regular characters and less on guest performers. Also, of particular harm to van Dreelen, camp was out, and that unending supply of series with World War II and Cold War themes was no more. He descended into a depression and even attempted suicide, more than once.
But van Dreelen, aided by the Kohner agency, managed a quick comeback, a great feat in that climate and a tribute to his stature and value to the medium. Hollywood atoned within a year or two and put him back on the A-list, and though not as fertile as the 60's, the late 70's became one of the best periods of his American TV career. He hit high-profile shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "Wonder Woman," always as the lead guest star or even "special guest star," a significant honor among A-listers. He starred in "The Clone Master," a 1978 sci-fi pilot that set him up as a syndicate boss in weekly pursuit of the title character and his duplicates. Van Dreelen brought electricity to the otherwise routine telefilm, which NBC declined to transition into a regular series. While still waiting on final word from the network, the actor mused about the name recognition and financial reward a successful series would finally bring...as well as putting his face on T-shirts and action figures.
He had a big chance at something different with 1977's "The Great Wallendas," one of the most acclaimed TV-movies of the decade. It provided van Dreelen a rare opportunity to play a regular guy (albeit a circus performer), with touching scenes interacting as both brother and father, and he received star billing alongside Lloyd Bridges, who played the head of the ill-fated high-wire family. Though smaller TV parts were to follow from time to time, he seemed finally to have earned his bona fides, and he would never again be billed as anything less than a guest star. (Finally weary of the Nazi routine, and in a position to turn it down, he opted out of a part in the famed 1978 mini-series "Holocaust.")
Van Dreelen was a fixture on America's small screens into the 80's, when a flurry of romantic detective shows and prime time soap operas came calling on him and many of his aging contemporaries. Craggy and graying (but ever-distinguished) during the late 70's, he returned to American TV in 1983 after a three-year hiatus with a newly unlined face and a sharper, colorized coif. He appeared as everything from a subtly homosexual fashion magnate ("Remington Steele") to an Eastern European archbishop (on "Dynasty"; the part was whittled down to nothing but his administration of vows during the famous Moldavian wedding massacre, but it led his obituaries in much of Carrington-crazed Europe). He also graced a few of the decade's more popular and awful action shows, including "Airwolf" and "Knight Rider."
He last appeared on American TV as the trusted advisor to Pierce Brosnan in the 1988 mini-series adaptation of James Clavell's "Noble House." Van Dreelen appears occasionally in the background, and doesn't have a strong scene of his own, his part mirroring Nancy Kwan's, who plays another of Brosnan's staff. But they clearly were cast to give the show some additional stature, as both received prime "face" billing in the opening credits. It was perhaps the best send-off an actor like van Dreelen could hope for as the 80's drew to a close; he didn't believe he was a "star," but he received star billing in a role for which an actor of less prominence would have found himself listed at the show's end. He had definitely achieved a certain stature; his presence brought class to a project, and he deserved star billing for it.
Van Dreelen's prolific American TV career (he appeared in over 120 series episodes, mini-series, and TV-movies) is especially notable considering his ongoing performances on stage, film, and television in other countries. Almost half of his films were actually European, and most of those not English-language, so it's a bit unfair to weigh his career without taking it all into account. This is difficult from an American perspective, considering the lack of access to his foreign film and TV appearances, as well as the fact that few were ever released to U.S. audiences, much less dubbed or subtitled for them. These parts were mostly supporting roles, though star turns included a 1972 West German romantic thriller, "Nachtschatten," and the previously noted TV series.
In his sixties van Dreelen looked back on his career with ambivalence toward Hollywood, but he was generally content to have been a hard-working "lover of life" whose religion had become "timing, destiny, and fate." Having divorced his first and second (American dancer Rosemary Rand) wives and taken a third (Rosemary Detomayo, a Philippine beauty 37 years his junior), he relocated to Europe and continued appearing in movies and television programs there. In his final years, he reverted to a "take the money and run" approach, accepting almost anything he was offered, even when he knew the producers were amateurs and the project would likely never be completed.
Fortunately, his last film was not independent garbage, but rather a German-English-French production of some prestige: 1992's "Becoming Colette," an English-language period piece that was released in the U.S. The white-haired, mustachioed 70-year-old has one scene as Klaus Maria Brandauer's father, and though the part is small it is dramatic and has an air of guest-star status (and he is even billed above "The Enemy General" star Jean-Pierre Aumont, who plays a similar patriarchal character). Van Dreelen died in September 1992, following the film's release. Unconscionably, there was no obituary in "Variety," which chronicles the deaths even of celebrities' family members. The Dutch press, however, fully acknowledged the passing of one of its most famous expatriates.
Though he often was cast in despotic roles, John van Dreelen played against type wherever possible and showed a great flair for styles ranging from light romantic drama to musical comedy. It's hard not to catalog the "might-have-beens" in his career: the "Sound of Music" disappointment, the movies that didn't hit it big, the American TV starring roles that never happened. His sometime nickname, "The Man Who Shot Sinatra," reduces his remarkable life into a bit of 60's trivia. Though his incredibly wide-ranging body of work has been analyzed here, to fully appreciate it one must experience it...the wily "Twilight Zone" assassin, the wistful "Madame X" suitor, the grieving "Great Wallendas" trouper, and yes, the vicious, gun-wielding "Von Ryan's Express" S.S. colonel. (If only the tough-but-tender "Sound of Music" captain had been preserved.) In short, John van Dreelen remains the very model of continental savoir-faire and cuts a dashing and memorable figure in the American pop culture oeuvre.
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Much of the personal information about John van Dreelen on this site is pulled directly from discussions he had with the Dutch producer and writer Ruud den Dryver while making the film "Odyssee d'amour." After John's death, Ruud transformed their conversations into a two-part memoir which was published in the Dutch magazine "Flashback." Ruud himself has provided his help in putting together many of the "pieces" in John's life for me, for which I am very grateful.
David D.
If you have any additional information or corrections, please e-mail me at david@daltonagency.com
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