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The son of German pianist Artur Schnabel, Stefan Schnabel prepared for a theatrical career at the University of Bonn and London's Old Vic. Schnabel made his Broadway debut in 1937 as a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, playing meaty roles in such ambitious Mercury efforts as Julius Caesar and Shoemaker's Holiday. He made his first film appearance in the Welles-produced Journey Into Fear (1942), and thereafter was seen in roles calling for Teutonic bombast. Back on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s, Schnabel essayed one of his best-loved roles: Papa Yoder in the musical Plain and Fancy. In the late 1960s-early 1970s, he was seen in a number of off-Broadway productions, including Tango and In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer. On television, Stefan Schnabel spent several years in the role of Dr. Steven Jackson in the CBS daytimer The Guiding Light, and in 1959 played "Firebeard" in the syndicated adventure weekly Tales of the Vikings.