Remember great german speaking actresses from A to Z
No ranking - just 100 of many others.
And yes, silent movie stars haven't to speak german.
And yes, silent movie stars haven't to speak german.
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- Actress
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Helga Anders was born on 11 January 1948 in Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria. She was an actress, known for Mädchen, Mädchen (1967), Im weissen Rößl (1967) and Amerika oder der Verschollene (1969). She was married to Roger Fritz. She died on 31 March 1986 in Haar, Bavaria, Germany.- Actress
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Fern Andre's show-business career started as an aerialist with a troupe that toured the U.S. and Europe. In Vienna she became a student of famed director/teacher Max Reinhardt and appeared in several of his plays and films. She soon settled in Berlin, where she starred in several productions for UFA Studios, some of which she also produced and directed. She also appeared in British and French films. In the sound era she returned to the United States, but after making only two films, she retired.- Maria Becker was born on 28 January 1920 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Mary Stuart (1974), Ein Monat auf dem Lande (1960) and A Glass of Water (1977). She was married to Robert Freitag. She died on 5 September 2012 in Uster, Kanton Zürich, Switzerland.
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A vivacious and very attractive blonde supporting actress and occasional singer, Frieda Elfriede Benkhoff might best be described as a German Eve Arden. Even though she rarely commanded a leading role, she became widely popular as an effervescent, perpetually wisecracking scene stealer who invariably had the last word, whether as friend of the heroine, gossipy aunt or busybody. One of eight siblings, Fita began her working life as a dental assistant and telephone operator while training for acting in her own time. She made her first theatrical appearance in "Don Carlos" at Dortmund's Stadttheater in 1925. This was soon followed by comic turns on the larger stages of Berlin and Vienna, after which she was signed by Germany's premier film studio Ufa for a series of short featurettes.
Fita was already 34 when she made her breakthrough as a feisty maid in Reinhold Schünzel's off-beat comedy Amphitryon (1935). She established such a popular rapport with the actor Paul Kemp that she was cast opposite him in further box office hits, including Boccaccio (1936), and, for once even co-starring, in The Bashful Casanova (1936). After successive critical plaudits with Love in Stunt Flying (1937), Opernball (1939) and Das Fräulein von Barnhelm (1940), Fita had become firmly established as one of Germany's leading comediennes. She continued her career with some success after the war, gradually drifting into character roles, most notably as Mother Wolff in Gerhart Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz (1949). After the death of her husband in 1957, Fita went into quasi-retirement and devoted much of her time to painting. Ten years later, her contribution was deservedly recognised with a Bambi Award. Sadly, she passed away soon after.- Actress
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Elisabeth Bergner was the daughter of the merchant Emil Ettel and his wife Anna Rosa Wagner. She grew up in Vienna, and she made her theatre debut in Innsbruck in 1915. In 1916 she obtained a contract in Zürich, where she played Ophelia next to the famous Alexander Moissi, who fell in love with her. The next stage in her career was Vienna, where she posed as a model for the talented but deeply unhappy sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck. He fell in love with her, but she rejected him; his suicide soon afterwards shocked her. After performing in Vienna and Munich she came to Berlin in 1921. There she played in productions by Max Reinhardt and became a very popular actress.
During her early years as an actress, she was often helped by the poet and critic Albert Ehrenstein, whom she called Xaverl. Ehrenstein was also in love with her. At one time she promised him a child but changed her mind. Ehrenstein wrote numerous poems for her, but often she kept him at a distance. However, their friendship lasted and they continued to exchange letters.
She made her film debut in Der Evangelimann (1924). In 1924, director Paul Czinner gave her a part in Husbands or Lovers (1924). This was the beginning of their successful professional collaboration as well as their personal relationship. Her most successful silent movie was Fräulein Else (1929).
Bergner and Czinner were both Jews, and after the Nazis came to power, they emigrated to Vienna and then London, where they were married. She learned English and was able to continue her career. In London, she became friendly with G.B. Shaw and J.M. Barrie, who after a long hiatus from writing drafted a play for her; the result, The Boy David (1936), unfortunately was not successful. She also appeared as Gemma Jones in the movie version of Escape Me Never (1935) by Margaret Kennedy, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Her movie The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) was forbidden in Germany.
During her London years, she sent much of her money to relatives and friends in need, among them Ehrenstein. Bergner's only Hollywood movie, Paris Calling (1941), failed to attract attention. On Broadway, she fared better and was very successful in The Two Mrs. Carrolls. While appearing in it, she encountered a young aspiring actress who stood in the alley outside the theater every night and claimed to have seen every performance; Bergner befriended and later hired her but broke with her after the young actress -- who called herself Martina Lawrence, the name of one of Bergner's twin characters in Stolen Life (1939) -- became over-interested in all aspects of Bergner's life. Bergner later recounted this story to her friend Mary Orr, a writer, who turned it into the short story "The Wisdom of Eve" -- which was the basis for the movie All About Eve (1950).
After the war, Bergner worked in New York for a few years; in 1950, she returned to England. She gave acclaimed Bible readings in Israel in English, German and Hebrew. In Germany, she resumed her stage career, and in 1959 she stunned audiences and critics in Berlin with her performance in Geliebter Lügner, a German version of Jerome Kilty's Dear Liar, a play based on the letters exchanged between G.B. Shaw and actress Stella Campbell. In 1961, she returned to the movies, and in 1970 she made her directorial debut. Her last stage appearance took place in 1973 (Her husband had died in 1972).
In 1978, a volume of her memoirs was published, in which she shared some of her secrets with the public, such as Lehmbruck's obsession with her. In 1979 she received the Ernst Lubitsch Prize and in 1982 the Eleonora Duse Prize. She discussed a possible return to Vienna with Bruno Kreisky, but she died from cancer at her home in London in 1986. In Seglitz (Berlin), a city park was named after her.- Christa Berndl was born on 18 January 1932 in Munich, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die Dreigroschenoper (1972), Leni (1994) and Women in New York (1977). She was married to Ulrich Heising. She died on 10 August 2017 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
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Monica Bleibtreu was born on 4 May 1944 in Vienna, Austria. She was an actress and writer, known for Four Minutes (2006), Die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman (2001) and Run Lola Run (1998). She was married to Hans-Peter Korff. She died on 13 May 2009 in Hamburg, Germany.- Lina Carstens was born on 6 December 1892 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. She was an actress, known for Lina Braake (1975), Fireworks (1954) and Der Engel mit dem Saitenspiel (1944). She was married to Otto Ernst Sutter. She died on 22 September 1978 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.
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A prominent German film actress born on 30 September 1887 at Madiven, Java, the daughter of a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch authorities. Sent at the age of ten to Baden-Baden to study, she later entered the cinema thanks to her marriage in 1917 to the actor Fritz Dagover who was 25 years her senior. They divorced in 1919 but not before he had introduced her to director Robert Wiene and other notables of German cinema. She made her screen debut in Fritz Lang's Harakiri (1919). Immediately after she appeared in Wiene's classic expressionist film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (aka The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)). Apart from three trips -- one to Sweden in 1927, another to France in 1928-9 and one to Hollywood in 1931 -- most of Lil Dagover's career and fate was linked to that of the German cinema, where her role was usually that of the frail, menaced heroine. She continued to star in a great number of films during the Nazi era. Among her best performances were her roles in Congress Dances (1931), in Gerhard Lamprecht's The Higher Command (1935) and in Veit Harlan's The Kreutzer Sonata (1937). She also acted in the Deutsches Theatre Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, at forces shows and at war theaters. At one time, she was reported to have been a close friend of Adolf Hitler. In 1944, she received the War Merits Cross. Dagover continued her career in post-war Germany, playing many supporting parts until the late 1970s.- Actress
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Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.- Käthe Dorsch was born on 29 December 1890 in Neumarkt, Oberpfalz, Germany. She was an actress, known for Frau Lenes Scheidung (1917), Fräulein Julie (1922) and Trenck, der Pandur (1940). She was married to Harry Liedtke. She died on 25 December 1957 in Vienna, Austria.
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Berta Drews was born on 19 November 1901 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Tin Drum (1979), Our Flags Lead Us Forward (1933) and One or the Other (1974). She was married to Heinrich George. She died on 10 April 1987 in West Berlin, West Germany.- Actress
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Tilla Durieux was born on 18 August 1880 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress and writer, known for Verdammt zur Sünde (1964), The Last Bridge (1954) and Woman in the Moon (1929). She was married to Ludwig Katzenellenbogen, Paul Cassirer and Eugene Spiro. She died on 21 February 1971 in West Berlin, West Germany.- Actress
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Aud Egede-Nissen was born on 30 May 1893 in Bergen, Norway. She was an actress and producer, known for Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Das Phantom der Oper (1916) and Deception (1920). She was married to Paul Richter and Georg Alexander. She died on 6 November 1974 in Oslo, Norway.- Actress
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From the day she was born Martha lived in a world of music. For sure her father was a banker but he was also an amateur pianist. As for her mother, she was a housewife but also a very talented opera singer who had given up her career for the joys of matrimony and motherhood. It does not come as a surprise, under such circumstances, that the little girl's singing capacities were soon discovered. At eight she was already on a scene singing an aria from "The Barber of Seville". A critic attended the show and was impressed by her performance. He introduced her to the director of the Magyar Theater, where she landed her first contract. As of the age of 10 she was hailed as Hungary's "national idol". And it was not long before her triumph became international. An operetta, "Pogasza", was written specially for the crystal-clear-voiced little singer. Among others, she played the role of the doll in "Tales of Hoffmann" and starred in "Das Veilchen vom Montmartre" by Kalman. With the advent of sound films, she found herself very much in demand in the 1930s, bringing her beautiful voice and looks to yet more delighted viewers. It is on the set of "Mein Herz ruft nach dir" that she met Jan Kiepura, another successful opera and operetta singer. Although it was not love at first sight, Jan and Martha gradually fell in love, married two years later, had two sons and were separated only by death with the demise of Jan in 1966. In 1938, the couple fled Austria after its annexation by Hitler and settled down in the South of France first then in the USA. Martha made fewer movies but kept on singing. For instance she co-starred in "The merry Widow" in Broadway for three years with Jan Kiepura. She became an American citizen in the fifties and currently lives in Rye, new York.- Actress
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One of the pre-eminent divas of post-war German cinema, Hannelore Elsner (born 'Elstner') was the consummate actress: a gifted and versatile performer with a penchant for intense roles, often as emancipated, strong-willed women. A Bavarian engineer's daughter (her father died of tuberculosis when she was eight), 'Hanni' first took acting classes in Munich where she also debuted on stage at the Kammerspiele and the Kleine Komödie. She appeared on screen from 1959, initially in teenage melodramas and 'Paukerfilms', later featuring as a regular guest star on TV in procedural crime dramas like Isar 12 (1961) and Stahlnetz (1958) . From the late 60's, Elsner alternated 'sexy roles' (such as her native American maiden in Christoph Kolumbus oder Die Entdeckung Amerikas (1969) ) with more demanding fare. Under the direction of such prominent film makers as Wolfgang Staudte, Edgar Reitz and Alf Brustellin, she proved her diverse range, headlining, respectively, in the satirical caper comedy Die Herren mit der weissen Weste (1970), the period biopic Der Schneider von Ulm (1978) and the hard-luck drama Der Sturz (1979). Among many other notable big screen credits were the romantic drama Der grüne Vogel (1980) (directed by István Szabó) and the delightful Otto Sander farce Wer spinnt denn da, Herr Doktor? (1982). Elsner's powerful tour-de-force acting showcase Die Unberührbare (2000) won her the first of two German film awards as Best Actress, as well as a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. A patrician beauty well into middle age, she captured a large fan base on the small screen as star of Lady Cop (1994), a role which developed from two previous guest spots as a Chief Inspector in the long-running police series Tatort (1970).
She was married and divorced twice. Her subsequent life partner (from 1999) was Günter Blamberger, a professor of German philology. Her memoirs, entitled "Im Überschwang - Aus meinem Leben", appeared in 2011. Hannelore Elsner died after a long battle with cancer on April 21 2019 at the age of 76.- Actress
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Constanze started into the movies at an early age: as the German voice of "Jeff" from "Lassie." After "Gymnasium" (high school) the daughter of actress Alice Franz studied singing at the Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium in Munich, Germany, at Guildhall School in London, GB, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Actress Rosemarie Fendel gave her acting lesssons. Constanze's career took place in all areas, she worked on stage, in movies and on TV. In 1998 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, followed by a mastectomy. The cancer spread to the liver. After going through 20 chemotherapy treatments, she suffered a backlash in March 2000 when doctors found a brain tumor with 11 metastases spreading through her brain. She is survived by her 16-year old daughter Julie and her husband François Nocher, who had stayed with her on an extra bed in her hospital room for the last days of her life.- Lucie Englisch was born on 8 February 1902 in Baden, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for The Dream of Butterfly (1939), The Laughing Third Party (1936) and Tante Wanda aus Uganda (1957). She was married to Heinrich Fuchs. She died on 11 October 1965 in Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany.
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Rosemarie Fendel was born on 25 April 1927 in Koblenz-Metternich, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for Trotta (1971), Im Reservat (1973) and Tätowierung (1967). She was married to Hans von Borsody and Johannes Schaaf. She died on 13 March 2013 in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany.- Agnes Fink was born on 14 December 1919 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She was an actress, known for Der gläserne Himmel (1987), Zwischen den Zügen (1961) and Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1966). She was married to Bernhard Wicki. She died on 28 October 1994 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
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Elisabeth Flickenschildt was born on 16 March 1905 in Blankenese, Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Das große Liebesspiel (1963), The False Step (1939) and The Indian Scarf (1963). She was married to Rolf Badenhausen. She died on 26 October 1977 in Stade, Lower Saxony, Germany.- Therese Giehse realized her passion for the theatre and acting at an early age. Though her family tried to change her mind about the theater she made her way to the stage anyway. She had a very intense friendship with the famous German writer Thomas Mann and his children Erika and Klaus. Klaus later dedicated his novel "Mephisto", which was a portrait of actor Gustav Gruendgens, to her. She also found a good friend in the writer Bertolt Brecht - she was the first actress to play his "Mother Courage". She was Jewish and decided to leave Germany when Hitler came to power, although it is known that he greatly appreciated her acting. In her exile in Switzerland she founded a kind of cabaret with Erika Mann. After the war she returned to Germany and began a new career in films.
- Käthe Gold was born on 11 February 1907 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Amphitryon (1935), Das Fräulein von Barnhelm (1940) and Nora (1955). She was married to Willy Frey. She died on 11 October 1997 in Vienna, Austria.
- Jenny Gröllmann was born on 5 February 1947 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Hälfte des Lebens (1985), Blutspur in den Osten (1995) and Schwurgericht (1995). She was married to Claus-Jürgen Pfeiffer, Ulrich Mühe and Michael Kann. She died on 9 August 2006 in Berlin, Germany.
- Käthe Haack was born on 11 August 1897 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Emil and the Detectives (1931), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943) and Meine vier Jungens (1944). She was married to Heinrich Schroth. She died on 5 May 1986 in West Berlin, West Germany.
- Margarete Haagen was born on 29 November 1889 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die falsche Braut (1945), Die Mädels vom Immenhof (1955) and Ferien auf Immenhof (1957). She died on 19 November 1966 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.
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Liane Haid was a prima ballerina, dancer, singer, stage and film actress. As a child, she studied voice and dancing and played at the Viennese Open Ballet. She worked in Budapest and Vienna as a dancer. On stage, she was in Berlin and Vienna. She also made close to a hundred movies - silents and talkies. She was the first female star of Austria. She was married three times. The last one was Swiss Dr. Carl Spycher, with which she had one son, the jazz musician, Pierre Spycher. She lived with her family near Bern, Switzerland, where she died at the age of 105 years young.- Actress
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As the daughter of a family of musicians, her passion for the stage was awakened early. After finishing school, she completed her training at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Hamburg with Professor Eduard Marks. Her career as a theater actress then took her to the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Deutsches Theater Göttingen, the Städtische Bühnen Heidelberg and the Theater of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. She appeared in front of the camera for the first time in a TV series in 1965 for "Polizeifunk Calls". From 1969 she appeared in the series "Ida Rogalski - Four Hours on Elbe 1", which brought her further fame. In 1976 she met Vicco von Bülow. This also marked the breakthrough of her TV career.
As Loriot's film partner, she and him became the most popular couple on comedic television. In 1978 she was awarded the "Golden Camera" for the first time. In the 1980s, films such as "Happy Voyage", "Pirate Radio Powerplay", "Looking for Family - Pay Cash" and "Evelyn and the Men or ''Like Dogs and Cats'' followed. Evelyn Hamann was also seen in TV series such as "Roncalli", "Schwarzwaldklinik" and "Jacob and Adele". Hamann had one of her most popular roles in 1988 alongside Loriot in the cinema production "Ödipussi". Her contribution was again honored with the "Golden Camera" award in the same year. In 1991 she appeared in front of the camera again with Loriot for the comedy "Pappa Ante Portas". Another star role as the criminal-headstrong secretary "Adelheid Möbius" in "Adelheid and Her Murderers" started as a series in 1992.
In the same year, the series "Stories from Life", "The Heir to Millions" and "Father Needs a Woman" also started. In 1993, Evelyn Hamann was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class. In 1997, Hamann received the "Tele-Star" and the "Bavarian Television Prize" for the series "Adelheid and Her Murderers". Her most recent films include "Angry in the Belly" (1998), "Ehe-Bruch" (1999) and "Husbands and Other Liars" from 2001. Evelyn Hamann has always said little to the press about her private life. She was divorced and lived in seclusion in Hamburg.
Evelyn Hamann died on October 29, 2007 in Hamburg after a short, serious illness.- Actress
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Lilian Harvey was born on January 19th, 1906 in London. Her mother was English and her father was German. When she was eight her family moved to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of WW1. She spent much of the war at school in Switzerland where she broadened her knowledge of languages and classical dance.
After graduating high school in Berlin, she worked in theatre revues before debuting in her first film "Der Fluch" for Robert Land. After many roles in silent films, UFA found great use for her acting, dancing and language skills in many famous light operettas made with the advent of sound. These highly popular films (usually co-starring Willy Fritsch, with whom she became irrevocably associated in the public's mind as the romantic dream-team of the European cinema) were usually made in three different languages at once. The cast would be switched around her for the various takes in German, French and English (Laurence Olivier had his first film role in one of her vehicles).
Her most successful film, 1931's "Der Kongress Tanzt"/"Le congress s'amuse"/"Congress Dances" led to a contract in Hollywood with the Fox Film Company. She dissolved this contract after a few pictures, walking out on a role that was filled by then-unknown Alice Faye and returning to UFA to be with director Paul Martin, with whom she was romantically involved. The Nazi regime had come to power in her absence and Lilian Harvey found it difficult to work under Goebbels.
She was instrumental in helping those persecuted by the Nazis escape until her film popularity waned and she was forced to escape as well. She eventually landed in the USA and spent most of WW2 in Los Angeles working as a volunteer nurse. Her former directors and co-workers like Michael Curtiz and Billy Wilder remained social contacts, but the stigma of having been UFA's biggest star of the early thirties kept her from reigniting her own film career. She did theatre work and continued to work on European stages after the war. She received war reparations in the early sixties and lived on the Riviera until her death on July 27th, 1968.- Heidemarie Hatheyer was an Austrian actress, singer and cabaret artist. She was born in Villach, Carinthia, Austria. After finishing high school she started to be a journalist but went instead to Vienna to play at the cabaret "Atelier am Naschmarkt". In 1936 she had her first stage engagement at the Theater an der Wien with Zarah Leander in "Axel an der Himmelstür" with music by Ralph Benatzky and lyrics by Paul Morgan and Hans Weigel.
In 1937 she worked at the Kammerspiele, Munich. And in 1942 an der Staatstheater Berlin. Luis Trenker discovered her for his film Der Berg ruft! (1938) , in which she became the leading lady. After that she signed a contract with Tobis Films. She played in Die Geierwally (1940) and I accuse (1941). After the war, because of her acting in this last Nazi-propaganda film, she was forbidden to play in cinema. Nevertheless, she played on stage in Germany, Switzerland and Vienna. From 1949 she was allowed to play again in cinema and on TV. In 1952 she married the author Curt Riess.
In the 60s she got many awards. In 1984 she got the German Filmband in Gold for her work in the German cinema and in 1989 the Filmband in Gold for acting in 1989 "Martha Jellneck". - Edith Heerdegen was born on 2 July 1913 in Dresden, Germany. She was an actress, known for Der Fall Liebknecht-Luxemburg (1969), Der Teufelsschüler (1973) and Der Stoff aus dem die Träume sind (1972). She was married to Otto Böhm. She died on 13 July 1982 in Dachsberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany.
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Hilde Hildebrand was born on 10 September 1897 in Hanover, Germany. She was an actress, known for Enemy at the Gates (2001), The Czar's Courier (1936) and Bel Ami (1939). She died on 28 April 1976 in West Berlin, West Germany.- Actress
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Marianne Hoppe was born on 26 April 1909 in Rostock, Germany. She was an actress, known for Ten Little Indians (1965), Wrong Move (1975) and The False Step (1939). She was married to Gustaf Gründgens. She died on 23 October 2002 in Siegsdorf, Bavaria, Germany.- Actress
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Brigitte Horney was born on 29 March 1911 in Dahlem, Germany. She was an actress, known for Liebe, Tod und Teufel (1934), Jakob und Adele (1982) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943). She was married to Hanns Swarzenski and Konstantin Irmen-Tschet. She died on 27 July 1988 in Hamburg, West Germany.- Actress
A lively brunette, dimple-cheeked actress with a tom-boyish, unaffected manner who briefly flirted with stardom in a string of romantic comedies during the mid-1930's. The daughter of a factory owner, Jenny was educated at a convent school in Austria. A short-lived marriage to the Italian actor Emo Jugo brought her to Berlin where she was spotted by the distinguished film producer Erich Pommer and subsequently signed to a contract with Ufa. Her comedic talents were not fully recognised until the first of her eleven films (Wer nimmt die Liebe ernst...? (1931)) under the direction of Erich Engel, who henceforth became her mentor. Jenny's forte was playing feisty, determined characters who tended to excel at oneupmanship. Her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Engel's adaptation of Pygmalion (1935) so enthused the author George Bernard Shaw that he offered her the opportunity to act in all of his plays on the stage in England.
Jenny remained in Germany, nonetheless, and made several more hugely popular films with Engel, including Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1936), as a young Queen Victoria; The Night with the Emperor (1936) (several years later marrying her co-star, the actor Friedrich Benfer) and the musical comedy Nanette (1940). Though flourishing briefly as one of Ufa's top box office attractions, her star declined as the Third Reich began to favour Germanic-looking blondes. Jenny made only a couple of films after the war before retiring to her farm in Schönrain in Upper Bavaria. She was eventually honoured by the prestigious Filmband in Gold in 1971 for her contributions to German cinema. Confined to a wheelchair for the last two decades of her life, Jenny Jugo died in September 2001 at the respectable age of 97.- Actress
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Kabel got into theater almost by chance. In 1932, a friend accompanied her to the audition at the Niederdeutsche Bühne, the forerunner of the later famous Ohnsorg Theater, in Hamburg. This led to a commitment for her, after which she took acting lessons. In the same year she had her stage premiere with the play "Ralves Carstens". Her previous dream of becoming a pianist was quickly forgotten. In 1937, Kabel married the actor and director Hans Mahler, who ten years later took over the management of the Ohnsorg Theater and promoted his wife's career. Her marriage to Mahler resulted in three children: sons Jan Rasmus Mahler (1938) and Heiko Mahler (1942) and daughter Heidi Mahler (1944), who also became an actress at the Ohnsorg Theater.
From 1954 onwards, Heidi Kabel made numerous television broadcasts from the Ohnsorg Theater, through which she became popular and experienced her breakthrough as a successful actress. Her greatest successes included the leading roles in the plays "The Most Beautiful Man from the Reeperbahn" from 1974 and "Fairground Stories" from 1983. In addition to numerous TV appearances, Kabel also appeared in the amusing TV series "Aunt Tilly" from 1987 and in the TV series "Campingpark" from 1990. Meanwhile, Kabel has already appeared in around 100 television appearances, for which she was awarded the most prestigious German media awards. Her awards include the 1967 "Golden Screen", 1982 "Silver Mask" from the Ohnsorg Theater, 1983 "Richard Ohnsorg Prize", 1984 "Biermann-Ratjen Medal", 1984 "Bambi", 1985 "Golden Camera" , in 1986 "Silver Laurel Leaf" from the Dramatists' Union and in 1994 she was appointed honorary commissioner of the Hamburg police.
In 2000, Kabel could look back on 60 years of successful stage experience. As an actress and personality, she developed into a Hamburg legend. In 2003, at the age of 89, her health deteriorated. She moved to a retirement home in Hamburg-Othmarschen. A year later, in autumn 2004, she was awarded the "Bambi" for her life's work.
Heidi Kabel died on June 15, 2010 at the age of 95 in a retirement home.- Actress
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Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born on December 28, 1925 in Ulm, Germany. In 1940, she began to study acting. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, but most of them were only released after the war. To avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers, she dressed like a young man and was sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin, where she played her first parts on stage. The first German movie after World War II, Murderers Among Us (1946), made her a star. David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood and offered her a contract--with two conditions: Hildegard Knef should change her name to Gilda Christian, and she should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. She refused both and returned to Germany. In 1951 she provoked one of the greatest scandals in German film history when she appeared naked in the film The Sinner (1951). The Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against that film, but Hildegard just commented: "I can't understand all that tumult--five years after Auschwitz!"
With the support of her first husband, the American Kurt Hirsch, she tried a second time to launch a Hollywood career and changed her surname from Knef to Neff (Americans could not pronounce Knef), but the only worthwhile part she got was a supporting role in the Hemingway adaptation of The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952). She became a leading lady in German, French, and British films. Finally, America offered her another chance, this time on the stage. She achieved a kind of stardom as Ninotchka in the very popular Broadway play "Silk Stockings".
In 1963 she began a new career as a singer, surprising audiences with her typical, deep, smoky voice and the fact that she wrote many of her own song lyrics. In 1970, she wrote the autobiographical bestseller "Der Geschenkte Gaul". She got sympathy from all over the world for her fight against cancer, which she defeated several times.
After the German reunification, Hildegarde Knef moved back to Berlin and died at age 76 of a lung infection on February 1, 2002.- Actress
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Hilde Krahl was born on 10 January 1917 in Brod, Austria-Hungary [now Slavonski Brod, Croatia]. She was an actress, known for Das Glas Wasser (1960), No Greater Love (1952) and Träumerei (1944). She was married to Wolfgang Liebeneiner. She died on 28 June 1999 in Vienna, Austria.- Gertrud Kückelmann was born on 3 January 1929 in Munich, Germany. She was an actress, known for Rausch einer Nacht (1951), The Life and Loves of Mozart (1955) and Der trojanische Krieg findet nicht statt (1964). She was married to Fritz Schuster. She died on 17 January 1979 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.
- Elfriede Kuzmany was born on 29 September 1915 in Rokitnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Rokytnice v Orlických horách, Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Das schwarz-weiß-rote Himmelbett (1962), Kennwort... Reiher (1964) and Sternsteinhof (1976). She was married to Achim Wachsmann. She died on 17 July 2006 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
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She grew up with four brothers. Her brother Gustav Hedberg later also became an actor. Her father had studied organ building and music in Leipzig. Through the influence of her German nanny and her German piano teacher, she was familiar with German language and culture from an early age. From 1911 she received lessons in violin and piano and in 1913, at the age of 6, she performed at a Chopin competition. She attended high school until 1922, where she perfected her German. In 1926 Leander married the actor Nils Leander, with whom she had two children and from whom she separated again in 1932. Her second marriage was from 1932 to the journalist Vidar Forsell, who separated from her in 1948. In 1929 she made her debut as a chanson singer at a Swedish traveling theater without any singing or acting training. Her career accelerated rapidly and just a few months later Leander appeared in the revue "The Cheerful Stockholm" and her first film role in "Dante's Mysteries".
She signed a contract with the Swedish record company "Odeon" and recorded 80 songs for them by 1936. She celebrated her first successes with titles like "I don't know why I do it". From 1929 to 1935, Zarah Leander took part in numerous revues with Karl Gerhard and made three feature films in Sweden. She then played in Franz Lehár's "The Merry Widow" and had a role in the film "The False Millionaire". She moved to Vienna in 1935, where she played in the operetta "Axel at Heaven's Door" and got a leading role in the Austrian crime film "Premiere". Due to the success, Leander signed a contract with "Universum Film AG". Ufa's goal was to build Zarah Leander as a global star in competition with Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. Between 1937 and 1942 Leander made ten Ufa films, including "A lavish Ball Night" and "The Heart of a Queen".
Leander was stylized as a "femme fatale" and became one of the most popular and expensive stars in Ufa. In her films, mostly melodramas, she often embodied a beautiful, passionate and self-confident woman. The actress became the most famous melodramatist in German film under National Socialist rule. Without any political ambitions of her own, she also took part in propaganda films such as "Heimat" (1938). Zarah Leander also released the songs from her films on records. Titles such as "Can love be a sin" or "I know, a miracle will happen one day" were recorded in several languages and achieved success around the world. In 1943, Leander ended her contract with Ufa, left Germany and went back to her home country of Sweden, where she retired to her Lönö estate. After the Second World War, Zarah Leander was banned from performing in Germany and Austria until 1948 because of her career under the National Socialists.
Leander continued to sing in Sweden and then again in Germany. In the 1950s she also played film roles in Germany again, including in "Gabriela" and "The Blue Moth", with which she was unable to build on her earlier successes. Zarah Leander married the bandmaster Arne Hülphers for the third time in 1956. Two years later she made her big stage comeback with the leading role in "Madame scandaleuse" in Vienna, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. She toured the world with her concerts in the 1960s, took on musical roles in Vienna and Berlin and published her autobiography in 1972 under the title "It was so wonderful. My life". She undertook a final tour of the USA in 1973. In 1978, the actress suffered a stroke during a performance in Stockholm, which put an end to her stage career.- Often called the First Lady of German cinema, Ruth Leuwerik was at the peak of her popularity during the 1950's when partnered on screen by the leading male stars of the post-war era: Dieter Borsche, Hannes Messemer, Curd Jürgens and O.W. Fischer. She proved her range by alternating between glamorous damsels and emancipated, resilient heroines in quality productions, invariably directed by master film makers like Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Robert Siodmak or Helmut Käutner.
Young Ruth first became enamoured with acting after watching a movie with Greta Garbo at the age of ten. Julius Martin Leeuwerik, a merchant, was sufficiently prosperous to afford his daughter private acting tuition after she was initially rejected by Berlin's premier acting academy. Undeterred, Leuwerik made her theatrical debut in 1943. The war, however, proved decidedly limiting to further career prospects. Between 1947 and 1949, she was able to gain steady theatrical engagements in Bremen and Lübeck. The following year, she came to the attention of film audiences in the vacation comedy, Dreizehn unter einem Hut (1950). Success was almost immediate and work on the stage henceforth took a back seat to the celluloid medium.
Between 1950 and 1963, Ruth Leuwerik starred in 28 pictures, nearly all of them box-office gold. These ranged from creaky melodramas like Die große Versuchung (1952) and Geliebte Feindin (1955) to prestige pictures like Rosen im Herbst (1955) (as Effie Briest, based on the novel by Theodor Fontane) and Ludwig II: Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955) (as Empress Elisabeth of Austria). Her varied roles encompassed not only the standard Mittel-European aristocratic heroines of the period, but also hardy bourgeois mothers, victims of circumstance and dedicated professional women. She played Maria von Trapp in The Trapp Family (1956) -- long before the musical version with Julie Andrews was conceived -- and showcased her abilities as a serious dramatic actress in the role of a priest's daughter, on trial for murdering her husband, in the title role of A Matter of Minutes (1959). Another moving and sympathetic portrayal was that of the physician Hanna Dietrich, tending to 300 German POW's inside a Siberian concentration camp, in the gritty post-war drama Taiga (1958). This particular performance won her the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival. Arguably the culmination of her career was Liebling der Götter (1960), a biopic of the tragic actress Renate Müller. Voted Germany's most popular actress by Bravo, "the magazine for film and television", Leuwerik also picked up four prestigious Bambi Awards in 1953, 1960, 1961 and 1962. She was the first German actress to participate in a Royal Performance in London in 1960.
From 1964 -- having rejected an offer from Hollywood -- Leuwerik began to withdraw from public life and restrict her appearances to occasional guest spots on television. Unlike other screen divas, her personal life was remarkably devoid of scandal and controversy. Her second husband was the famous German opera singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Ruth Leuwerik died in Munich in January 2016 at the age of 91. - Ursula Lingen was born on 9 February 1929 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die Affaire Dreyfus (1968), Der widerspenstigen Zähmung (1958) and Die rote Rosa (1966). She was married to Kurt Meisel. She died on 20 October 2014 in Vienna, Austria.
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Bruni Löbel was born on 20 December 1920 in Chemnitz, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for Forsthaus Falkenau (1989), Timm Thaler (1979) and Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung (1969). She was married to Holger Hagen and Gerhard Bronner. She died on 27 September 2006 in Mühldorf am Inn, Bavaria, Germany.- Susanne Lothar was born on 15 November 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Funny Games (1997), The White Ribbon (2009) and The Reader (2008). She was married to Ulrich Mühe. She died on 21 July 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
- Renate Mannhardt was born on 20 November 1920 in Barmen, Germany. She was an actress, known for Fear (1954), Die große Schuld (1953) and The Lost Man (1951). She died in July 2013 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Maja Maranow was born on 20 March 1961 in Nienburg/Weser, Lower Saxony, Germany. She was an actress, known for Tatort (1970), Ein starkes Team (1994) and Rivalen der Rennbahn (1989). She was married to Zacharias Preen and Florian Martens. She died on 4 January 2016 in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
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Winnie Markus was born on 16 May 1921 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. She was an actress and producer, known for Zwei Münchner in Hamburg (1989), Wen die Götter lieben (1942) and The Mozart Story (1948). She was married to Adi Vogel and Heinz Zellermayer. She died on 8 March 2002 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Lisa Martinek studied acting at the Hamburg University for Music and Theatre from 1993 to 1997. During that time she also performed at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and acted in several TV and film productions. From 1997 to 2001 she was a member of the Schauspielhaus Leipzig, engagements with Schauspiel Frankfurt and Deutsches Theater Berlin followed. For her role as bike courier Lena in the movie Trial by Fire (Härtetest) she was nominated for the Deutscher Filmpreis, the highest German movie award, in 1998. She was also nominated for the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (German Television Award) in the category Best Lead for her work in the made-for-TV movie Jagd auf den Flammenmann. She starred alongside Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz in the 2007 made-for-TV remake of Helmut Käutner's Die Zürcher Verlobung and played the role of Juliane, which, in the original 50 years prior, had been played by Lilo Pulver. From 2006 to 2011 she starred as inspector Clara Hertz alongside Charlotte Schwab in the ZDF crime series Das Duo. Lisa Martinek lives with her husband Giulio Ricciarelli and their children in Berlin and Munich.
- Louise Martini was born on 10 November 1931 in Vienna, Austria. She was an actress, known for Der Fall Mata Hari (1966), Madame Sans-Gêne - Die schöne Wäscherin (1968) and Blick von der Brücke (1967). She was married to Heinz Wilhelm Schwarz and Bill Grah. She died on 17 January 2013 in Vienna, Austria.
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Inge Meysel was born on 30 May 1910 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Gertrud Stranitzki (1966), Die Unverbesserlichen (1965) and Ida Rogalski (1969). She was married to John Olden and Helmuth Rudolph. She died on 10 July 2004 in Bullenhausen, Lower Saxony, Germany.- Actress
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Brigitte Mira was born on 20 April 1910 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975) and Chinese Roulette (1976). She was married to Frank Guerente, Paul Cornelius, Peter Schütte, Horst Fabian and Reinhold Tabatt. She died on 8 March 2005 in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
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Grete Mosheim was born on 8 January 1905 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Car of Dreams (1935), The Dreyfus Case (1930) and Poor as a Church Mouse (1931). She was married to Robert Cooper, Howard Gould and Oscar Homolka. She died on 29 December 1986 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
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Highly popular German star Renate Muller was the toast of late 20s Berlin along with the legendary Marlene Dietrich. Unlike Dietrich, however, she suffered at the hands of the Nazis and died under mysterious circumstances.
Renate was born in Munich on April 26, 1906, the daughter of a newspaper editor-in-chief and a painter. As a child she lived a privileged, well-to-do life in pre-Nazi Germany. An early interest in acting and poetry led her to the Harzer Bergtheater under the tutelage of Georg Wilhelm Pabst, one of her professors at school. By the late 20s she had established herself as one of Berlin's most active and versatile stage players.
Actor/director Reinhold Schünzel hired Renate for her first movie and used her again many times in some of her (and his) best films. As her American counterparts at the time were Claudette Colbert and Nancy Carroll, Renate too became a shining star of light, sexy comedies. Pert, stylish and wholesomely pretty, she had just enough of an edge to make her impish sexuality all the more interesting.
The highlights of her rather brief career were The Office Girl (1931) (1931), which made her a star, and Victor and Victoria (1933) (1933), the widely popular romantic story of a woman who disguises herself as a man. In the mid-30s, however, the entertainment industry was becoming acutely affected by the rise of Hitler. While the outraged Dietrich turned her back on her country and became a U.S. citizen, Renate stayed true and remained in her homeland despite her intense dislike of the bleak political situation. She became less cooperative, however, over the years, especially when they began putting her in propaganda films, such as Togger (1937).
Renate died tragically at age 31 on October 1, 1937, having checked into a Berlin hospital for knee surgery (some sources say drug addiction). She apparently fell or was pushed out of a third-story window and died instantly. Some sources say it was suicide due to her desperate unhappiness over the rise of Nazi Germany and her artistic entrapment. Others insist it was a murder covered up by the fascist regime. Those who favor this story claim that her death was the result of her lack of cooperation, her clandestine involvement with a Jewish man, and the regime's fear that she was going to turn traitor and leave Germany. In any event, her death was deeply felt and she was mourned by her many fans who weren't even allowed to attend her funeral.- Lola Müthel was born on 9 March 1919 in Darmstadt, Germany. She was an actress, known for Rosen im Herbst (1955), Die Nibelungen (1967) and Interview mit der Geschichte (1964). She was married to Hans Caninenberg and Eric Helgar. She died on 11 December 2011 in Gräfelfing, Bavaria, Germany.
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Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an actress. By 17 she was a star on the Warsaw stage, but World War I would soon change the theater scene. Without the theater, Pola turned to films. With her new career in pictures and her stage success in "Sumurun", she went to Berlin and was teamed with German director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was very successful and the roles that Pola played were earthy, exotic, strong women. One of her films, Passion (1919), was optioned and retitled "Passion" for exhibition in America. The film was such a success that by 1922 she and Lubitsch were both given contracts to work in Hollywood. While her first few films showed some success, they were overshadowed by her reported romances with such stars as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Forbidden Paradise (1924), made with Lubitsch, and Hotel Imperial (1927) were two of her more successful films. However, three things conspired to end her career in Hollywood: (1) The perception that her mourning for Rudolph Valentino was insincere, though Negri did describe him as the love of her life; (2) The Hays Office codes that would not allow her to show the very traits that made her a sex-siren in Europe; (3) Her thick Polish accent would not play in the sound pictures that were coming into vogue.
Pola Negri returned to Europe and eventually made films for UFA, which was under Nazi management. In 1941 she returned to America penniless. She made Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and became an American citizen in 1951. Her next and last movie was The Moon-Spinners (1964).
She died of pneumonia in San Antonio, TX, in 1987.- Actress
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Susi Nicoletti was born on 3 September 1918 in Munich, Germany. She was an actress, known for Feuerwerk (1976), Confessions of Felix Krull (1957) and Die Spur der Leidenschaft (1961). She was married to Ernst Hauessermann and Ludwig Ptack. She died on 5 June 2005 in Vienna, Austria.- Actress
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Danish leading woman of German films who became one of the greatest stars of the silent era. A native of the Copenhagen suburb of Vesterbro, Nielsen was the daughter of a coppersmith and a washerwoman, both of whom died before Nielsen was fifteen. Her stage debut came as a child in the chorus of the Kongelige Teater's production of Boito's opera "Mephistopheles." She studied at the Royal Theatre School of Copenhagen and embarked upon a stage career in her late teens. She toured Scandinavia and became one of the highest-paid and most popular stage actresses of her time and place. In 1909, director Urban Gad suggested that the silent screen would allow her to transcend her Danish language barrier, and she agreed appear in his film 'Afgrunden (1910)'. The film was successful and Nielsen was encouraged to continue in this new art form. A German distributor, Paul Davidson, invited Nielsen to Germany, where he was building a film studio which would eventually become Europe's largest--the Universum Film Union A.-G. (or Ufa). Nielsen and her director, Gad, whom she had married, went to Germany and spent the next quarter century there. She became one of the true superstars of the silent screen, a tragic heroine whose photograph during the First World War accompanied German and also British and French troops into battle. Among her notable films after the war was a version of "Hamlet, " which was not so much a Shakespearean film as it was an exploration of a then-current theory that the real Hamlet had been, in fact, a woman. Nielsen played the title role. She continued to play a wide variety of roles in Germany and occasionally in Denmark and Norway, never losing the respect and popularity she had maintained almost from the beginning of her career. She abandoned her film work just as sound was taking over the industry. Aside from one or two brief forays in talkies, her acting was thereafter confined to the stage. She died in 1972 at the age of 89, shortly after her fifth marriage.- Actress
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When she was two years old, her parents divorced. Nitsch therefore grew up in a renowned boarding school, where she also graduated from high school. After school she trained as a costume designer. During her training, Nitsch came into contact with the film world. She took part in some filming, which made her decide to become an actress. Nitsch took on her first smaller roles in television series such as "Forsthaus Falkenau", "Derrick", "Der Alte" and "Freunde fürs Leben" in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But Nitsch was also represented on the big screen from the beginning: in 1989 she played a smaller role in "Bomerang" by Hans Wilhelm Geißendörfer; Her first leading role in the cinema was in Sönke Wortmann's "Alone Among Women" in 1990. Nitsch achieved her first breakthrough and greater popularity in 1993 in the lead role in the ZDF series "Nur einer kleine Affair", for which she received the Adolf Grimme Prize and the Bavarian Television Prize the following year.
She celebrated further success in 1994 as the hardened head of a special operations team in the Pro7 series "The Streets of Berlin". In 1996, directed by Dieter Wedel, she appeared as a shady hairdresser in the television production "Der Schattenmann" on ZDF. In the cinema, Nitsch shone as a bank robber in the film "Thieves" in 1996 and in the comedy "Women Don't Lie" in 1997 and in the thriller "Shock - A Woman in Fear". In her performance she impressed with her distinctive voice as an emancipated, combative woman. In addition to acting, Nitsch also ran a company where she lived in Munich that dealt with event management. In mid-September 2004, the actress was seen with her last performance in the posthumous premiere of the ARD production "Judith Kemp".
Jennifer Nitsch fell to her death from the fourth floor of her attic apartment in the Schwabing district of Munich on June 13, 2004 under the influence of alcohol. Suicide can only be assumed.- Actress
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Gudrun Okras was born on 8 December 1929 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Jetzt oder nie - Zeit ist Geld (2000), Wo andere schweigen (1984) and Dr. Sommerfeld - Neues vom Bülowbogen (1997). She died on 23 July 2009 in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
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A charming, elegant, and exceedingly popular international film star with a gentle, understated beauty, actress Lilli Palmer was born as Lilli Marie Peiser on May 24, 1914, in Posen, Prussia. She was the daughter of Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish actress, and Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon. In addition to her native German, she grew up becoming fluent in French and English as well. Of her two sisters, older sister Irene Prador became an actress and singer in her own right. Lilli studied drama in Berlin and made her theatrical debut there in 1932 at age 18. Within a short time, however, the family was forced to flee their native homeland with the rise of Hitler and settled in Paris. Eventually Lilli moved to England to rebuild the career she had started on stage and film.
She made her British movie debut co-starring in the "B" mystery drama Crime Unlimited (1935), playing the distaff member of a syndicate of jewel thieves who becomes a romantic pawn for a policeman (Esmond Knight) who has infiltrated the crime ring as a plant. Throughout the rest of the decade she upped the value of her name in both "A" and "B" material, notably Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), Silent Barriers (1937) and The Man with 100 Faces (1938) where she provided the usual element of feminine mystery.
Lilli's career took a major upswing during the early to mid 1940s. Several of her pictures centered around the omnipresent war, particularly Thunder Rock (1942), her film career-maker), which starred Michael Redgrave as an anti-fascist journalist who retreats to Canada, and Notorious Gentleman (1945), with Rex Harrison as a idle bounder who sees the error of his ways and becomes a war sacrifice. This was Lilli's first movie with husband Harrison; they married in 1943 and she bore him a son, Carey Harrison, the following year. Carey grew up to became a writer and director.
The family moved to America in 1945 to further their careers. Rex and Lilli became a prominent acting couple, appearing together on the early 50s Broadway stage with "Bell, Book and Candle" (1950), "Venus Observed" (1952) and "The Love of Four Colonels" (1953), the last mentioned directed by Harrison. In movies, they co-starred in the murky crimer The Long Dark Hall (1951) and the vastly superior The Four Poster (1952), which later gave rise to the musical adaptation "I Do! I Do!". Lilli was award the Venice Film Festival Award for this performance and represented herself well with other handsome male acting partners, notably Gary Cooper in her debut American film Cloak and Dagger (1946) and John Garfield in the classic boxing film Body and Soul (1947), leaving audiences enthralled with one of its newer foreign imports. At one point, she was given her own own (short-lived) TV show to host, The Lilli Palmer Show (1951).
Somewhat typecast by this time as heartless cads and opportunists on film, "Sexy Rexy", as husband Harrison was known in the tabloids, developed quite a reputation off-camera as well. A particularly disastrous romance with actress Carole Landis led to that actress's tragic suicide in 1948. Lilli took the high road and came off the better for it in the public's eye. She eventually called it quits, however, with both Harrison and Hollywood and returned to Europe in 1954. In 1956 Lilli filmed Between Time and Eternity (1956) [Between Time and Eternity] and fell in love with handsome Argentine co-star Carlos Thompson, who had developed matinée idol status in Germany. They married in September of 1957, several months after her divorce from Harrison became final. This marriage endured.
Lilli matured gracefully in films, the epitome of poise and class, but she lost any potential for top stardom after leaving Hollywood. She made international productions for the rest of her career, primarily German and French, but they did not live up to her early successes and were not seen all that much outside of Europe. She managed to work, however, opposite a "Who's Who" of European male stars of the time, including Curd Jürgens, James Mason, Louis Jourdan, Jean Gabin, Jean Marais, Jean Sorel, Gérard Philipe and Klaus Kinski. Of those few movies she made in Hollywood, she played the prickly wife of Clark Gable, who has a May-December affair with young Carroll Baker in But Not for Me (1959); was a sparkling and witty standout in the ensemble cast of The Pleasure of His Company (1961); and proved quite moving in the William Holden spy thriller The Counterfeit Traitor (1962). On TV here, she was touchingly effective as Mrs. Frank in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank (1967) with Max von Sydow, and enjoyed one of her last roles in the acclaimed miniseries Peter the Great (1986).
The final decade and a half played out rather routinely with supporting roles in such films as diverse as Oedipus the King (1968), De Sade (1969), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). She demonstrated her writing talents with her popular bestselling biography "Change Lobsters and Dance" in 1975, and later published a novel "The Red Raven" in 1978. Dying of cancer in 1986 at age 71 in Los Angeles, Lilli's surviving second husband Thompson, who had abandoned acting in the late 60s and turned to turned TV writing/producing, committed suicide four years later back in his native Argentina.- Actress
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One of Germany's most popular actresses, Witta Pohl started to act on stage before she had major success in film and television. From 1983 to 1994, she starred in the leading role as the mother in the quite popular tv-series "Diese Drombuschs", her most memorable role. In the early Nienties she left her career as an actress behind her and stared to help children and established "Kinder Luftbrücke e.V.", an organisation which arranged transports to children mostly to East Europe. For her humanitarian work, Witta Pohl was awarded with the Golden Camera in 1994 (an award she had already won two times before, for her acting work) and with the Federal cross of Merit. She died from leukemia on April 4, 2011 in Hamburg.- Actress
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Henny Porten was born January 7, 1890, in Magdeburg, Germany. She had one of the longest careers of any German actress and was highly sought after because of her wonderful thespian skills. Henny's career would stretch over six decades, from 1906 to 1955. Her first film was in Apachentanz (1906), making her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. At the age of 65, Henny filmed her last production entitled Die Schätze des Teufels (Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1955)). Henny died in Berlin, Germany, on October 15, 1960, at the age of 70.- Else Quecke was born on 5 September 1907 in Duisburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Hunting Scenes from Bavaria (1969), Der Fall Winslow (1961) and Gaslicht (1960). She was married to Ernst Frank. She died on 19 June 2004 in Bad Wiessee, Bavaria, Germany.
- Käthe Reichel was born on 3 March 1926 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Levins Mühle (1980), Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (1958) and Das Licht auf dem Galgen (1976). She died on 19 October 2012 in Buckow, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Frida Richard was born on 1 November 1873 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Ihre Hoheit (1914), Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Hedda Gabler (1925). She was married to Fritz Richard. She died on 12 September 1946 in Salzburg, Austria.
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Marika Rokk was born in Cairo on the 3rd of November 1913. As a child she moved to Hungary. In Paris at the Moulin Rouge she started her career as a dancer, soon moving on to Broadway New York City, USA.
She made her first films Why Sailors Leave Home (1930) in London, & also Kiss Me Sergeant (1930) in London, U.K.
After that she made 2 very fine films in Hungary, her home.
Miss Rokk made her first German film: Light Cavalry (1935) in 1935 it made her a Star overnight. Soon she married German Film Director Georg Jacoby and her 2nd German film was Der Bettelstudent (1936), directed by him.
In 1939 she made It Was a Gay Ballnight (1939) with superstar Zarah Leander and started filming the first German color film Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten (1941) which was finished and released two years later.
The couple had one child, Gabriele Jacoby. Miss Rökk also married Fred Raul. She retired from films in the 1960s but continued to perform in Operetta's like "Die Blume von Hawaii" & others on the stage across Europe before retiring to Baden, Austria. She died of a heart attack May 16, 2004.- Actress
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Annie Rosar was born on 17 May 1888 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Die goldene Stadt (1942), Wir bitten zum Tanz (1941) and Kleine Melodie aus Wien (1948). She was married to Franz Rebiczek and Max Walser. She died on 5 August 1963 in Vienna, Austria.- Rose Renée Roth was born on 12 December 1902 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. She was an actress, known for Schloß Königswald (1988), Scheibenschießen (1970) and Detective Story (1963). She died on 10 March 1990 in Vienna, Austria.
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Born 1958 in Wehbach an Der Sieg and raised in Kassel, Germany. After finishing Realschule (high school) she worked as book club agent. Her job led her to Munich, where she was discovered as an actress by students of the academy for film and theater. In 1978 she started her education in the Zinner film studio, her first part was the leading role in Kopfschuß (1981), which was presented 1982 in Cannes. Since then she appeared in various other well known German productions. Some of her fame may be due to the fact that she isn't shy to reveal much in erotic scenes in her films.- Adele Sandrock was born on 19 August 1863 in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for Helen of Troy (1924), Op hoop van zegen (1924) and Die Försterchristl (1931). She died on 30 August 1937 in Berlin, Germany.
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Maria Schell studied in a religious institution in Colmar (Haut-Rhin, France). She received a dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay her studies, she was a secretary there. Besides being a film star; Maria appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, in Vienna (Josefstad Theater), Berlin, Munich (Kammerspiel Theater), at the Salzburg Festival and went on provincial tours from 1963. Among the plays she performed there were such classics as William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust" and such modern classics as "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw.- Actress
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The enigmatic actress remains one of the most interesting figures in German film. Although she achieved stardom early in her career, the tragic Sybille Schmitz could never fit in with her surroundings. Too "alien looking" for Hollywood, Schmitz never migrated to America like her more glamorous peers and began losing roles in her native Germany as well due to her vaguely Semitic appearance and ties to the Jewish community. After the war, like many former UFA stars, Sybille was seen as a painful reminder of the Third Reich and she was once more displaced by the optimistic "new look" actresses. With acting being her sole reason to thrive, Sybille Schmitz began to drink heavily and rely on drugs as her career sank lower and lower. She finally committed suicide under mysterious circumstances on April 13, 1955, while being "cared for" by a corrupt lesbian doctor she was living with at the time of her death.- Actress
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Romy Schneider was born on 23 September 1938 in Vienna, Austria into a family of actors. Making her film debut at the age of 15, her breakthrough came two years later in the very popular trilogy Sissi (1955). Her mother, supervising her daughter's career, immediately approved Romy's participation in Christine (1958), the remake of Max Ophüls's Playing at Love (1933), where Magda Schneider once starred herself. During the shooting, she fell in love with her co-star Alain Delon and eventually moved with him to Paris. At that time, she started her international career collaborating with famous directors such as Luchino Visconti and Orson Welles. After Delon had broken up with her in 1964, she married Harry Meyen shortly after. Although she gave birth to a boy, David-Christopher, their relationship was difficult, so they divorced in 1975. Being unsatisfied with her personal life, she turned to alcohol and drugs, but her cinematic career -especially in France- remained intact. She was the first actress, receiving the new created César Award as "Best Actress" for her role in That Most Important Thing: Love (1975). Three years later, she was awarded again for A Simple Story (1978). After a short marriage to her former secretary Daniel Biasini, being the father of her daughter Sarah Biasini, she suffered the hardest blow of her life when her son was impaled on a fence in 1981. She never managed to recover from this loss and died on 29 May 1982 in Paris. Although it was suggested she committed suicide caused by an overdose of sleeping pills, she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest.- Hannelore Schroth was born on 10 January 1922 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Captain from Köpenick (1956), Emil of Lonneberga (1971) and A Glass of Water (1958). She was married to Peter Köster, Hans Hass and Carl Raddatz. She died on 7 July 1987 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.
- Ellen Schwiers was born on 11 June 1930 in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany [now Szczecin, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for Arms and the Man (1958), 1900 (1976) and Doktor Martin (2007). She was married to Peter Jacob. She died on 26 April 2019 in Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany.
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Edda Seippel was born on 19 December 1919 in Brunswick, Germany. She was an actress, known for Ein Kapitel für sich (1979), Schonzeit für Füchse (1966) and The Marquise of O (1976). She was married to Gerhard Forschbach. She died on 12 May 1993 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Erna Sellmer was born on 19 June 1905 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Karriere in Paris (1952), Das Fräulein von Barnhelm (1940) and So war Mama (1962). She died on 13 May 1983 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.
- Sabine Sinjen was born on 18 August 1942 in Itzehoe, Germany. She was an actress, known for Marili (1959), Mädchen in Uniform (1958) and Wir - zwei (1970). She was married to Günther Huber and Peter Beauvais. She died on 18 May 1995 in Berlin, Germany.
- Camilla Spira was born on 1 March 1906 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1950) and Laubenkolonie (1930). She died on 25 August 1997 in Berlin, Germany.
- Ruth Stephan was born on 27 October 1925 in Altona [now Hamburg], Germany. She was an actress, known for Gruß und Kuß vom Tegernsee (1957), Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank - 1. Trimester: Zur Hölle mit den Paukern (1968) and Hurra, die Schule brennt - Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank IV. Teil (1969). She was married to Balduin Baas and Wolfgang Wahl. She died on 8 August 1975 in Berlin, Germany.
- Agnes Straub was born on 2 April 1890 in Munich, Germany. She was an actress, known for Der Richter von Zalamea (1920), Fridericus (1937) and Das Haus der Lüge (1926). She was married to Lionel Royce. She died on 8 July 1941 in Berlin, Germany.
- Proficient in Greek and Latin and self-taught in classic literature, Sonja Sutter was a captivating actress who achieved dramatic depths on both stage and screen during a career which commenced in 1951. A banker's daughter, she had completed a rudimentary education in her home town (Freiburg) where she also made her theatrical debut. She was 'discovered' for the screen by Luis Trenker during an audition for a Heimatfilm and passed along to the director Slatan Dudow who gave her a pivotal role in his post-war drama Frauenschicksale (1952). Affiliated with both East and West German cinema, Sutter then appeared in several prestige pictures, including Das Schweigen im Walde (1955) and Die Barrings (1955). Not until five years later did she get another opportunity to demonstrate her talent as the titular star of Lissy (1957), directed by Konrad Wolf. This anti-fascist drama, chronicling the lives of a working class family in 1930's Berlin under the Nazis, became one of Wolf's most famous films and was also the high point of Sutter's film career. Perhaps too closely identified with a particular type of character, she received fewer film offers from the West in the 60's. The creation of the Berlin Wall effectively ended her association with DEFA. Returning to the stage, Sutter became an ensemble member of the iconic Vienna Burgtheater in 1959. Her tenure with the company lasted four decades, with as many as seventy leading roles to her repertoire. She also regularly performed at the Salzburg Festival, her roles ranging from Strindberg's "Queen Christina" and Schiller's "Intrigue and Love" (Kabale und Liebe) to Gute Werke in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's medieval play "Everyman". Towards the end of her career, she concentrated increasingly on TV work, often guesting as genteel ladies in popular crime shows like Tatort (1970), Derrick (1974) and The Old Fox (1977).
- Jane Tilden was born on 16 November 1910 in Aussig, Austria-Hungary [now Ustí nad Labem, Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Der Graf von Luxemburg (1972), Feuerwerk (1976) and Mrs. Cheneys Ende (1957). She was married to Sidney John Blackburne, Alexander Steinbrecher and Erik Frey. She died on 27 August 2002 in Kitzbühel, Tyrol, Austria.
- Alice Treff was born on 4 June 1906 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die Feuerzangenbowle (1970), Holiday in St. Tropez (1964) and Der Fall Winslow (1961). She died on 8 February 2003 in Berlin, Germany.
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Gisela Trowe was born on 5 September 1922 in Dortmund, Germany. She was an actress, known for Königinnen von Frankreich (1953), Wie ein Blitz (1970) and Der Richter von Zalamea (1968). She was married to Thomas Engel. She died on 5 April 2010 in Hamburg, Germany.- Actress
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Olga Chekhova (also Olga Tschechova in German), one of the most popular stars of the silent film era, remained a mysterious person throughout her life and was accused of being a Russian agent in Nazi Germany.
She was born Olga Konstantinovna von Knipper on April 26, 1897, in Aleksandropol, Transcaucasia, Russian Empire (now Gyumri, Armenia). She was the second of 3 children in a bilingual Russian-German family. Her father, Konstantin Leonardovich Knipper, a Lutheran of German descent. He made a military career in Russia as a railroad engineer. Young Olga studied art and literature at an art school in St. Petersburg. Later as an immigrant in Germany she claimed friendship with the family of Tsar Nicholas II--who also was of German origin--and that she had encountered the notorious Russian mystic and monk, Grigory Rasputin. In reality, she was sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow to her aunt, actress Olga Knipper-Chekhova, to study acting at Moscow Art Theatre. In 1914, at age 17, she eloped with Russian-Jewish actor Michael Chekhov, nephew of Anton Chekhov.
Olga adored her husband, Michael Chekhov, a rising star of stage and film. But he met another beauty, Xenia Zimmer, and became involved in extramarital affair while Olga was pregnant with their child. Their daughter, Ada Tschechowa, was born in 1916. Olga separated from Michael Chekhov during the tragic time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. That same year she made her film debut in a Russian silent film, Anya Kraeva (1918).
Olga claimed that she fled Russia disguised as a peasant woman and posed as a mute while carrying a diamond ring in her mouth. In reality she married an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, Friedrich Jaroshi, and took a train from the Moscow Belorussky station to Vienna, Austria, having travel documents from the Russian Commissar of Culture (and she was also helped by the Russian intelligence agency in exchange for her cooperation). She was later invited to the Soviet Embassy in Berlin for meetings with Soviet officials. In Germany she was introduced to film producer Erich Pommer and renowned director F.W. Murnau, who gave her a leading role in his film, The Haunted Castle (1921). She quickly became a huge star in Europe and played in more than 40 silent films during the decade. Olga was joined by ex-husband Michael Chekhov in several films, including Der Narr seiner Liebe (1929) (aka "The Fool of Love"), which she also directed.
Future Nazi leader Adolf Hitler reportedly fell for Olga upon seeing her cold and beautiful face in several films in the 1920s. She was famous for her movie image as a baroness and was courted in the 1930s by Luftwaffe boss Hermann Göring and by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Some wives of high-ranking Nazi officials were jealous of and hated the beautiful Olga. Goebbels was known to have visited her home on several occasions when he wanted to be away from his Nazi "activities". He invited Olga to several Nazi receptions and introduced her to Adolf Hitler in April 1933. Olga became a personal friend of Hitler and was photographed sitting next to "Der Fuhrer" at official events of the Nazi Party. She also received valuable Christmas gifts from Hitler, and regular birthday presents and other tokens of his attention.
In 1936 Olga was honored with the title of "State Actress" of the Third Reich and was made a German citizen. She married a wealthy Belgian businessman, Marcel Robyns. One day prior to the wedding she had a private reception with Hitler, who gave her permission to retain her German citizenship. Two years later she divorced Robyns and returned to her high-society life in Berlin. Her famous 1939 photo-op with Hitler was thoroughly analyzed in Moscow.
She was invited by Soviet officials to join Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop at the meeting with Vyacheslav Molotov and Gen. V. N. Merkulov at the Soviet Embassy in Berlin in 1940. At that time Olga was associated with her agent-brother Lev Knipper, who was sent from Moscow to Germany on a secret mission to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The plan was to use one of Olga's visits with Hitler for a suicide attack on the Fuhrer. Olga was kept oblivious of the plan, which was aborted by an order from Joseph Stalin, who became paranoid about the possibility of Germany's alliance with Britain if Hitler was killed. Interestingly, Stalin and Hitler were both amateur film directors in the 1920s, but as dictators they now directed the course of history.
Olga was invited by Josef Goebbels to the official reception in Berlin in July of 1941, only a month after the Nazis invaded Russia and Luftwaffe bombings caused massive devastation to Russian cities. Goebbels announced the planned occupation of Moscow.
She was being investigated by the SS on orders from SS leader Heinrich Himmler. She was constantly under surveillance by both Nazi and Soviet agents in her Berlin home. As the war progressed and conditions got progressively worse for the Nazi regime, party bosses became increasingly paranoid. Himmler was planning to arrest her in January of 1945. One early morning she was informed of Himmler's move. She immediately called him directly with a request for a favor--to let her finish her morning cup of coffee comfortably. When SS commandos surrounded her home Himmler opened her door and was met by an angry Adolf Hitler, who in no uncertain terms informed Himmler that he had made a mistake.
Olga was a beautiful pawn in a dangerous game between the two most destructive powers in the Second World War. She survived through acting, cheating, lying and disguise. She protected her daughter Ada from Nazi anti-Semitism by hiding the fact that her ex-husband, Michael Chekhov, was Jewish. Her brother Lev Knipper was held in a Nazi concentration camp and managed to survive because of his perfect German (and probably with her help). During the savage battle for Berlin just before the war's end, Olga hid in a bomb shelter and was eventually taken prisoner by the Red Army. She was flown to Moscow in April of 1945, for debriefing at the offices of Soviet secret police officials Viktor Abakumov and Lavrenti Beria. She discreetly attended the Moscow Art Theatre performance of "The Cherry Orchard" starring her aunt Olga Knipper-Chekhova in May of 1945. They were not allowed to talk and her aunt Olga fainted backstage.
After two months of interrogations in Moscow, on June 26, 1945, Olga was flown back to Berlin, where she was assisted by the Soviet Army. She was given money and moved in to a Soviet-supervised house on Spree Strasse in the Soviet sector of East Berlin. Several articles in the French and British presses stated that she was a clandestine agent and secretly decorated by the Soviet government. She praised the Russian victory over the Nazis in a private letter to her aunt Olga Knipper-Chekhova. Meanwhile, the film she made in Hollywood turned out to be a flop in the US market, mainly because of her heavy Russian accent.
She continued a film career in Europe and ran her own film production company, Venus-Film Olga Tschechowa. In 1950 she moved to Munich and starred in several films. In 1955 she used her star power to launch a successful cosmetics company, "Olga Tscheschowa Kosmetik Geselschaft." Her remarkable acting career, spanning almost 60 years, ended in 1978, with a small film role as a grandmother.
Her personal file was temporarily available for viewing at the KGB archives in Moscow. One report on her was prepared and signed by the notoriously brutal KGB chief Viktor S. Abakumov. On that report a handwritten question was left by a reader in Kremlin: "What do you suggest to be done with Ms. Chekhova?", the handwriting was by Joseph Stalin. Stalin was quoted as having said, "The actress Olga Chekhova will be very useful in the post-war years", and she probably was. One of her films was titled Der Mann, der zweimal leben wollte (1950), or "The Man Who Wanted to Live Two Lives"--and that was exactly what she did.
In 1955, Olga was saddened by the death of Michael Chekhov. In 1966, Olga suffered from another tragedy: her only daughter Ada died in an airplane crash. Devastated by the painful loss, Olga suffered from bouts of depression and turned to alcohol, but she survived thanks to her strong will and lust for life. She lived for another fifteen years, played a few more roles in the movies, and saw her great-grandchildren grow. Moments before she died, sensing the end was near, she ordered a glass of champagne from her granddaughter Vera Tschechowa. That was March 9, 1980, in Munich, Germany.
Her last words were, "Life is beautiful!"- Actress
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Gisela Uhlen was born on 16 May 1919 in Leipzig, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Rembrandt (1942) and The Indian Scarf (1963). She was married to Herbert Ballmann, Wolfgang Kieling, Hans Bertram, Beat Hodel and Kurt Wessels. She died on 16 January 2007 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.- Actress
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Louise Ullrich was born in Vienna, the daughter of a major in the Austro/Hungarian Army. She studied at the Kunstakademie, and, while still a teenager, was contracted for two years by the Wiener Volkstheater where she enjoyed her first success on the stage. In late 1932, Louise received an engagement from the Lessing Theater in Berlin to co-star opposite Werner Krauss in 'Rauhnacht'. During one of her performances she was spotted by actor and film-maker Luis Trenker who cast her in the leading role of Erika in Der Rebell (1932). While Louise was inevitably secondary to both star and scenery, the picture did provide a stepping stone to further opportunities. In the Max Ophüls-directed Playing at Love (1933) she had second billing behind established star Magda Schneider (mother of Romy) and the following year appeared in the title role of Erich Waschneck's Regine (1935).
Other prestigious films with budding star Louise were to come: Viktoria (1935), a romance based on a novel by Knut Hamsun; and Annelie (1941), a family movie which earned the film studio Ufa the then record sum of six and a half million Reichsmark and garnered Ullrich the Coppa Volpi award in Venice. Her films also established her as an actress of stature - not of the conventional leading lady variety, not particularly ornamental or even especially beautiful - but of the ideal 'girl next door' type: tomboyish, spirited, charming and witty. Alternatively -- as in 'Annelie' -- she would embody the archetypal mother figure (resonating significantly with wartime filmgoers) or a weak-willed , sad wife (as in the title role of Henrik Ibsen's Nora (1944)). Audiences and critics alike applauded her performances and Louis B. Mayer even offered her a contract at MGM in 1938 which Louise declined. Instead, she traveled to South America where she met her future husband, Count Wulf Dietrich zu Castell, director of Munich-Riem airport.
After the war, Louise Ullrich made a seamless transition to character roles, dividing her time between stage and screen. One of her notable film appearances during this time was as Cornelie in Harald Braun's Keepers of the Night (1949). Though she had misgivings about the maudlin sentimentality and melodramatics of the screenplay (stating in her autobiography that it wouldn't have mattered to her whether she got the part or not!), the critic Gunter Groll praised her performance as more mature and defined while always retaining her distinguishing genuine qualities. In the 1960's, she made a number of television appearances (including a series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, in which she played a strong-willed grandmother) and in 1973 published her memoirs. Louise Ullrich spent most of her remaining years writing and painting. One of her last works was an Australian travel memoir, published in 1985. The popular actress died of cancer in January that year.- Actress
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Dana Vávrová was born on 9 August 1967 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. She was an actress and director, known for Herbstmilch (1989), Amadeus (1984) and Der letzte Zug (2006). She was married to Joseph Vilsmaier. She died on 5 February 2009 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Actress
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Helen Vita was born on 7 August 1928 in Hohenschwangau, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for Cabaret (1972), Die Feuerzangenbowle (1970) and Satan's Brew (1976). She was married to Walter Baumgartner. She died on 16 February 2001 in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
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Elsa Wagner was born on 24 January 1881 in Reval, Russian Empire [now Tallinn, Estonia]. She was an actress, known for The Marriage of Figaro (1949), Die Buddenbrooks (1923) and Der Spieler (1938). She was married to Herr Rühl. She died on 17 August 1975 in West Berlin, West Germany.- Actress
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Lizzi Waldmüller was born on 25 May 1904 in Knittelfeld, Styria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Bel Ami (1939), Es lebe die Liebe (1944) and Frau Luna (1941). She was married to Max Hansen. She died on 8 April 1945 in Vienna, Austria.- Actress
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Grethe Weiser (born in Hannover, Germany, as Mathilde Ella Dorothea Margarethe Nowka) was a singer, comedian, film and stage actress. She grew up in Kotsche and Dresden and went to the private school Höhere Töchter. At the age of 18 she married Josef Weiser, with whom she had a son in 1922. The family moved to Berlin, where Mr. Weiser opened a cabaret for his wife. There Grethe studied acting and singing, played first at the famous Wintergarten and at the Cabaret der Komiker. Soon she became one of the best German Couplet and Chansonnette singers. Her first silent movie was "Männer vor der Ehe" (1927), where she played a mate. Later her husband decided to leave Germany because he was Jewish and so not destroy the career of his wife. After the divorce in 1934 she met film producer Hermann Schwerin and he became her companion. Most of her films were comedies, happy humor films and full of heart. In 1960 she played on stage in Hamburg and in Berlin an der Komödie am Hebbel and at the Renaissance Theater. In 1968 she got an award called "Verdienstkreuz" from the German President. She made more than 140 movies and some of her greatest were The Divine Jetta (1937) ("The Divine Jetta") (1937), Die große Liebe (1942) ("The Great Love")(1942) in which she met the great Zarah Leander and became her life long friend, Gabriela (1950) with Zarah Leander, Fanfaren der Liebe (1951) ("Fanfares of Love") (1951) which was remade in the USA with Marilyn Monroe as "Some Like It Hot", Der Onkel aus Amerika (1953) ("Uncle from America") (1953) opposite Hans Moser, and Casino de Paris (1957).- Actress
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Ilse Werner was born in Batavia (present-day Djakarta), the daughter of the Dutch merchant O.E.G. Still and his German wife, Lilly Werner. She spent her early childhood in Batavia, before the family moved her to Frankfurt to attend secondary school. In 1936, Ilse enrolled at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna to study elocution and drama. Following her graduation, she was offered a contract with a prestigious theatre in Josefstadt and made her stage debut in 1938. 'Discovered' by the director 'Geza von Bolvary' during a performance, she first acted on screen in Finale (1938). Her career then took off at lightning speed and she became one of the most popular stars at Ufa for the next seven years.
An attractive, tomboyish brunette, Ilse had a considerable aptitude for singing, which producers brought to the fore by frequently casting her in films like Request Concert (1940), the pop musical Wir machen Musik (1942), and (as 19th century Swedish opera star Jenny Lind) in the biopic Die schwedische Nachtigall (1941). Ilse could also be called upon to handle dramatic material and gave creditable performances in Bel Ami (1939) and Great Freedom No. 7 (1944), opposite Hans Albers. She cleverly alternated her film career with appearances in cabaret and on radio.
After the war, she married an American journalist and spent several years in California. After her divorce in 1953, she returned to Germany, but a successful movie comeback eluded her. Nonetheless, she remained in the public eye after releasing several top-selling albums. Her pop song "Baciare" became a major hit across Europe in 1960. In 1970, Ilse acted in a German stage version of the musical "The King and I", and, thereafter, continued to make further sporadic appearances on stage and on television until her eventual retirement in 2000.- Actress
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Paula Wessely was born on 20 January 1907 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress and producer, known for Episode (1935), Masquerade in Vienna (1934) and Maria Theresia (1951). She was married to Attila Hörbiger. She died on 11 May 2000 in Vienna, Austria.- Elisabeth Wiedemann was born on 8 April 1926 in Bassum, Province of Hanover, Prussia [now Lower Saxony], Germany. She was an actress, known for Spätere Heirat erwünscht (1966), Ein Herz und eine Seele (1973) and Bürger Schippel (1964). She was married to Werner Mengedoht and Richard Lauffen. She died on 27 May 2015 in Marquartstein, Bavaria, Germany.
- Maria Wimmer was born on 27 January 1911 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. She was an actress, known for Richelieu (1977), Glückliche Tage (1965) and Der große Zapfenstreich (1952). She was married to Otto Seemüller. She died on 4 January 1996 in Bühl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
- She started her long term acting career in 1904 as a young woman at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. She was a member of stage companies in Hannover and Berlin, but she retired after her marriage in 1915. After her divorce she started again as a stage actress in the late 1930s in Berlin. In 1939, she made her film debut. In the 40's, she also worked as a teacher at the drama school of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In the post war period, she was member of a popular radio cabaret group in Berlin. When she was older, she gained more popularity. In the 1960s, when she was in her seventies, she became a famous character actress of West German cinema and television. She played mostly old ladies with charm and wit. She is best remembered as grandma in the TV-series 'Die Unverbesserlichen' (1966-71). She died aged 87 in Berlin. Her grave is named a grave of honor.
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Rosel Zech was born on 7 July 1940 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Veronika Voss (1982), Salmonberries (1991) and The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time (1985). She died on 31 August 2011 in Berlin, Germany.