F. W. Murnau's Real Name: Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe

Quick answer: F. W. Murnau's real name was Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe. He was born on December 28, 1888, in Bielefeld, Germany, and took the professional name Murnau as a young man.

[IMAGE: credited still or portrait of F. W. Murnau from a public-domain or CC source, e.g. Wikimedia Commons / filmportal, with photographer or archive credit]

Murnau's real name and how he got the stage name

Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe adopted Murnau early in his theatrical career. Reliable film histories and German archives list Plumpe as his birth name and Murnau as the chosen professional name (filmportal.de; Britannica Kids; Deutsche Historische Museen / LeMO). The name is widely linked to the Bavarian town of Murnau, a known artists' colony associated with the Blaue Reiter circle; sources differ on whether he chose it mainly for artistic association, family privacy, or both (Encyclopedia.com; Murnau Stiftung).

He studied art history and literature in Berlin and Heidelberg and was encouraged toward the stage by Max Reinhardt before moving into film after World War I service as a combat pilot (Britannica Kids).

Career highlights: Nosferatu to Sunrise

Murnau became one of the defining directors of Weimar cinema. Key works include:

• Nosferatu (1922): an unauthorized but landmark screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, praised for atmospheric and technical effects (Britannica Kids).
• The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924): famous for its mobile camera and near-absence of intertitles.
• Faust (1926) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927): the latter, made for Fox in Hollywood, remains a cornerstone of silent-era cinema (filmportal.de).

[IMAGE: credited still from Nosferatu or Sunrise (public-domain / archive still), with studio or archive credit]

Death and legacy

Murnau died on March 11, 1931, near Santa Barbara, California, after an automobile accident (Britannica Kids; LOC name authority). He was 42. The Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation later took his professional name as its own.

Amazon note (tag realname1-20): editions of Nosferatu on Blu-ray/DVD, books on Weimar cinema, and Sunrise restorations are natural product slots for this page.