Schell was top billed in a number of Nazi-era themed films, as he could speak both English and German. Among those were two films for which he received Oscar nominations: The Man in the Glass Booth (1975; best actor), where he played a character with two identities, and Julia (1977; best supporting actor), where he helps the underground in Nazi Germany.\n', '

His range of acting went beyond German characters, however; and during his career, he also played personalities as diverse as Venezuelan leader Simón Bolívar, Russian emperor Peter the Great, and physicist Albert Einstein. For his role as Vladimir Lenin in the television film Stalin (1992) he won the Golden Globe Award. On stage, Schell acted in a number of plays, and his was considered "one of the greatest Hamlets ever."\n', '

In Schell\'s private life, he was an accomplished pianist and conductor, performing with Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein, and with orchestras in Berlin and Vienna. His elder sister, Maria Schell, was also a noted Hollywood actress, about whom he produced the documentary My Sister Maria, in 2002.\n', '

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