Biographie
Max Hansen was born in Mannheim, Germany, but was raised by his step-parents in Munich. His mother was the Danish actress Eva Haller, and his father's surname was von Waldheim. During his school years, he performed at the Opera House, earning the nickname "The Little Caruso" ("Der kleine Caruso"). He later studied music and voice and secured a position at the Simplizissimus Cabaret in Munich. From 1914, he performed operettas in Vienna and became a close friend of Franz Lehár. Subsequently, he worked in Berlin at the Metropole Theater, where he rose to fame as a star of operettas, revues, cabaret, and radio. Between 1926 and 1928, he acted in five silent films. His first sound film was Wien, du Stadt der Lieder ("Vienna, City of Song") in 1930. In 1932, he starred opposite Gitta Alpar in She, or Nobody ("She, or Nobody").
In 1933, he left Germany for Vienna and performed in Switzerland, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Helsinki. One late summer day in 1936, while in Copenhagen, Swedish singer Zarah Leander received a call from Max Hansen. He asked if she spoke German, to which she replied affirmatively. He then invited her to take the female lead in Axel an der Himmels Tür ("Axel at the Gate of Heaven"), an operetta composed by Ralph Benatzky. Hansen, along with Paul Morgan and Hans Weigel, was producing the operetta at Theater an der Wien. Excited about her first German-speaking role, Zarah accepted the part without inquiring about the pay. In 1949, Max Hansen visited Hamburg, and in 1951 he performed in Berlin and Scandinavia. He passed away in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1961.
