Biography
The older of two sons of director/actor Erich Von Stroheim (1885-1957), Erich Von Stroheim Jr. was born in 1916; his mother was Mae Jones, who was briefly the second wife of the filmmaker. Erich Von Stroheim Jr. showed up as a baby in
Charles Chaplin's
Easy Street (1917), and made a few acting appearances in the late '20s and early '30s, but most of his career credits dated from the early '50s and after. In 1953, he joined the syndicated television production company Ziv-TV, serving as an assistant director on
I Led Three Lives and
Science Fiction Theatre, the latter produced by
Ivan Tors. He served as assistant director on
Budd Boetticher's independently produced drama
The Magnificent Matador (1955),
Nicholas Ray's
Party Girl (1958, in which he made an uncredited onscreen appearance), and
George Marshall's comedy
The Gazebo (1959). The latter two films were made at MGM around the time Von Stroheim was working on the occult-thriller series
One Step Beyond. He spent the next few years moving between MGM and Universal, in between small-scale dramas like
Phil Karlson's
The Secret Ways (1961),
Jack Arnold's comedy
Bachelor in Paradise (1961), and
Vincente Minnelli's outsized
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). Minnelli's
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) had him serving as assistant director and also as an actor in a small role, as Ravinski. Von Stroheim was an assistant director on the World War II series
Combat and the spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., around the time of his work in
Otto Preminger's
The Cardinal (1963). His last film projects --
Once a Thief (1965),
Mister Buddwing (1966), and
Don't Make Waves (1967) -- were all MGM productions (as was The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Around a stint on the
David Dortort-produced series
The High Chaparral, Von Stroheim worked on the Western
The Last Challenge (1967). He died in late 1968, of cancer, after working on
The Thousand Plane Raid and -- arguably the best film project of his career --
Haskell Wexler's
Medium Cool, both of which were released in 1969. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide