Maximilian Schell is the most successful German-speaking actor in English-language films since Emil Jannings, the winner of the first Best Actor Academy Award. Like Jannings, Schell won the Oscar, but unlike him, he is a dedicated anti-Nazi. Indeed, with the exception of Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni, Schell is undoubtedly the most successful non-anglophone foreign actor in the history of American cinema.