- Formerly a trainer of big cats and polar bears at Hagenbeck Circus. On stage as an actor from 1911. Prolific character actor in films from 1929. Settled in East Germany after World War II and appeared primarily in Defa productions.
- In addition to the Neues Lustspielhaus des Westens, he also worked for Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble after World War II.
- Püttjer was a German film actor who appeared in around 150 feature films between 1927 and 1959.
- He soon became a permanent 'prop' for the Decla biopic and shot seven films in three weeks. "Oh, that was beautiful", remembered Gustav Püttjer once.
- His characters, often seamen or miners, craftsmen or proletarians, were characterized by mischievous humour, wisdom and philanthropy. Püttjer, who also liked to use his North German dialect in films, became an indispensable supporting actor and audience favorite.
- To his most popular movies of the 30's belong "Die letzte Kompanie" (1930) with the legendary Conrad Veidt, "Danton" (1931) with Fritz Kortner in the title role, "Die Dreigroschenoper" (1931) written by Bert Brecht, the Edgar-Wallace film adaption "Der Zinker" (1931), the very successful science-fiction movie "F.P. 1 antwortet nicht" (1932) with the Ufa star Hans Albers, "Zu neuen Ufern" (1937) with the fascinating Zarah Leander, and "Eine Nacht im Mai" (1939) with Marika Rökk.
- In the 30's followed the height of his career and his character was put into action by nearly all famous directors.
- Occasionally he also worked as a production manager.
- He largely played character parts.
- The predator trainer traveled through European countries with Circus Hagenbeck for five years and then performed a predator act in variety shows, presenting seven lions and a polar bear. He then became an actor and received his first engagement at the end of 1911 in Cologne.
- The actor Gustav Püttner began his impressive film career at the end of the 20's and he was able to impersonate countless support roles in many well-known productions.
- He appeared in cabarets as a cabaret artist and in variety theaters with a predator act in which he trained seven lions and a polar bear. But he wanted to go into the theater and found his first engagement in Cologne in 1911, mainly for plays in Rhenish and Low German dialect. He used both his comic charisma and his artistic skills.
- After the Second World War he settled in East Germany appearing in the films of the state-controlled company DEFA.
- From the early 1920s, Gustav Püttjer was part of director Fritz Lang's team and worked as a production manager on his films Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927).
- During the National Socialist era, he was on "The Gottbegnadeten-Liste= "God-gifted list" (Important Artist Exempt List") at the end of the war. The Gottbegnadeten-Liste was a 36-page list of artists considered crucial to National Socialist culture.
- He was approached by a production manager at Café Metropol in Berlin, who gave him his first small film role.
- From 1928 onwards, Püttjer was one of the busiest minor and supporting actors in German cinema, mainly playing the roles of ordinary people.
- After the war he worked in the new arosed GDR.
- Püttjer named Otto Rippert's six-part silent film serial Homunculus(1916/17) as his first film to be taken seriously.
- He finally came to Berlin via Gelsenkirchen - it is not possible to determine exactly when-. In a portrait published in the "Neue Film-Welt" in 1952, Bernd Karger-Decker mentioned the year 1915, when Püttjer is said to have been approached by a production manager in the Café Metropol, and his subsequent participation in a film produced by Deutsche Bioscope GmbH, possibly "Vom Regen in die Traufe" (Emil Albes) with the then very popular actress Anna Müller-Lincke.
- Gustav Püttjer grew up as the stepson of a Hamburg cigar maker and became acquainted with the suffering of poor families at an early age. In search of a livelihood, he hired himself out as a garbage collector and waiter, then traveled through Europe as an animal keeper and trainer in the ensemble of the legendary Circus Hagenbeck.
- Max Mack's movie " Ein Tag Film" (1928) was his last film as production manager; here Hans Albers, at whose side Püttjer would later appear more often, played an assistant director.
- At the end of his life, Gustav Püttjer was given another major role in the parable Holubice (TheWhite DoveE) by Czech director Frantisek Vlácil. In the film, which was partly shot on the Baltic Sea, about a nine-year-old paralyzed boy from Prague who cares for an injured carrier pigeon that has flown to him and recovers in the process, he plays an old, grumpy sailor on the island of Fehmarn who hopes in vain for the return of his lost pigeon. Gustav Püttjer died in Berlin immediately after filming on August 11, 1959.
- Holger Madsen engaged him, as production manager, for "Die Sporck'schen Jäger "(1926/27); in Max Mack's" Steh' ich in finstrer Mitternacht" (1927) he took on both the production managing and a small, unnamed role.
- Püttjer first appears on the DEFA cast lists as Charly, the chemist Alland's supplier, in Arthur Maria Rabenalt's Chemie und Liebe. Although he was ultimately not given this small role for unknown reasons, his name can still be found in the cast lists today.
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