It's one of the most-quoted lines in Eurocult cinema history, and the person who spoke them onscreen in Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) -- actor-director Rudolf Schündler -- was born 100 years ago today.Many people don't make the connection, but Schündler played an even more widely-seen role in the 1970s: that of Karl, the chauffeur of Chris MacNeil and her daughter Regan in THE EXORCIST (1973). But his roots as a player in the West German kinefantastiche goes back to the 1930s, encompassing Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1933) and various Edgar Wallace krimis, including THE SINISTER MONK (1965), THE COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS (1967), and THE MAN WITH THE GLASS EYE (1969). In the early 1970s, he began accepting work in Italy and was featured in THE RED QUEEN KILLS 7 TIMES (1972), MAGDALENA POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL (1974, as Father Conrad), Hans-Jurgen Sylberberg's epic biography KARL MAY (1974), and the aforementioned SUSPIRIA, in which he played Dr. Milius, the authority on witchcraft who explains the history of the Three Mothers to Jessica Harper's Susy Banyon.
The son of a businessman, Schündler trained to be an actor in Leipzig and appeared in stage performances in Beuthen, Zurich, Nuremberg and Dortmund before making a name for himself in Berlin, where he worked as an actor and stage director until 1937. In Munich, he founded the Kabarett Die Schaubude in 1945 and worked there as a player and as the cabaret's artistic director until 1949. After this, he returned to working exclusively in film, initially in the role of director. He directed more than 20 films of his own between 1950 and 1962 (none of a fantastic nature), but acting was his true passion. He followed SUSPIRIA with many more roles in film and television, including a part in Wim Wenders' modern classic THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977), before bringing his acting career full circle by starring in the 1985 short DR. MABUSE IM GEDACHTNIS ("Dr. Mabuse in Memorium").
Schündler died of a heart attack in December 1988 at the age of 82. He was buried in Munich at the Ostfreidhof cemetery and a photograph of the burial site he shares with his mother and two siblings can be found on this page of an interesting German website, which also pictures the Baden-Baden grave of Dr. Mabuse himself, Wolfgang Preiss.
