Jacques Arndt (formerly Jacques Abrahamer; also known as Jacques Abraham and Diego A.) was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). His family moved to Vienna as a child, where he graduated from Realgymnasium, in 1928. He began his studies in drama at an early age at the Burgtheater. From 1931 to 1934 Jacques Arndt was a scholarship student of theater arts at the Akademie fuer Musik und darstellende Kunst (A.M.d.K.). Concurrently, he was assistant to the head of the A.M.d.K. and received first prize upon graduation. From 1935 to 1936 he had an engagement with a German ensemble, Die Komedie, in Luxemburg. From 1936 to 1938 he was an actor in Viennese theatres; particularly in radio plays of RAVAG (Oesterreichisches Radioverkehr – A.G.). He was a member of the Ring von oesterreichischen Buehnen-Kuenstler from which he was dismissed in 1938, when Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany.
Due to the Nazi persecutions Arndt made an illegal entry into Luxemburg in July 1938, and remained there until December. He was supported by a relief organization.
In 1939 he emigrated to Uruguay. He found work as a speaker and artistic director of the German speaking radio-hour La Voz del Dia, in Montevideo, a position he held until 1941. Arendt then became actor, director and stage designer at the Freie Deutsche Buehne, in Buenos Aures, Argentina. From 1951 he was director of radio and TV staged plays for Spanish speaking theaters in Argentina and Chile. From 1958 he was German editor, manager of the state-owned short-waved radio station in Buenos Aires, until, in 1971, when he was dismissed by the Peron government. From 1959 to 1962, after departure of Siegmund Breslauer (which ended the Freie Deutsche Buehne) Arndt was founder and director of a German-language ensemble the Deutsches Theater, Buenos Aires –Teatro Aleman de Buenos Aires, with support from the Federal Republic of Germany. They toured in South America and Europe.
Arndt participated in radio and television conferences in the USA, France and the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1970 he was the Argentine delegate at an international symposium of German short-wave stations in Koeln. He was author for radio and television and made a number of adaptations of plays and translations of German dramas. He contributed to Argentine newspapers and magazines. Arndt was a member of various professional and cultural organizations. He worked on over forty Argentinean films.