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IMDbPro

Lilli Palmer(1914-1986)

  • Actress
  • Writer
  • Soundtrack
IMDbProStarmeter
See rank
Lilli Palmer in Mädchen in Uniform (1958)
Home Video Trailer from MGM Home Entertainment
Play trailer2:44
The Holcroft Covenant (1985)
6 Videos
77 Photos
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 (1936), 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.
BornMay 24, 1914
DiedJanuary 27, 1986(71)
BornMay 24, 1914
DiedJanuary 27, 1986(71)
IMDbProStarmeter
See rank
  • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award

Photos77

Lilli Palmer in Good Morning, Boys! (1937)
Lilli Palmer in Chamber of Horrors (1940)
Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer in Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Lilli Palmer in Silent Barriers (1937)
Lilli Palmer in Between Time and Eternity (1956)
Klaus Kinski and Lilli Palmer in Only the Cool (1970)
Lilli Palmer and Fritz Wepper in Derrick (1974)
Lilli Palmer in Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Lilli Palmer and Fritz Wepper in Derrick (1974)
Clark Gable and Lilli Palmer in But Not for Me (1959)
Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer in Notorious Gentleman (1945)
Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer in The Four Poster (1952)

Known for

Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (1956)
Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter
5.6
  • Anna Anderson (Die Unbekannte)
  • 1956
Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer in The Four Poster (1952)
The Four Poster
6.5
  • Abby Edwards
  • 1952
Mädchen in Uniform (1958)
Mädchen in Uniform
7.0
  • Elisabeth von Bernburg
  • 1958
The Boys from Brazil (1978)
The Boys from Brazil
7.0
  • Esther Lieberman
  • 1978

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actress

  • Peter Bogdanovich, John Huston, and Susan Strasberg in The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
    The Other Side of the Wind
  • Maximilian Schell in Peter the Great (1986)
    Peter the Great
  • The Holcroft Covenant (1985)
    The Holcroft Covenant
  • Fred Grandy, Bernie Kopell, Ted Lange, Gavin MacLeod, and Lauren Tewes in The Love Boat (1977)
    The Love Boat
  • Eine etwas sonderbare Dame
  • Imaginary Friends
  • Feine Gesellschaft - beschränkte Haftung (1982)
    Feine Gesellschaft - beschränkte Haftung
  • Kinder
  • Elvira's Movie Macabre (1981)
    Elvira's Movie Macabre
  • Sarah in America
  • Weekend
  • Kaninchen im Hut und andere Geschichten mit Martin Held
  • Lilli Palmer in Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (1972)
    Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau
    • ...
  • The Boys from Brazil (1978)
    The Boys from Brazil
  • Lilli Palmer in Lotte in Weimar (1975)
    Lotte in Weimar

Writer

  • Lilli Palmer in Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (1972)
    Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau
  • Round the Film Studios

Soundtrack

  • Lilli Palmer in Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (1972)
    Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau
  • Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Tab Hunter, and Lilli Palmer in The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
    The Pleasure of His Company
    • (uncredited)
  • Lilli Palmer in Eine Frau, die weiss, was sie will (1958)
    Eine Frau, die weiss, was sie will
  • Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (1956)
    Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter
    • (uncredited)
  • Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer in Cloak and Dagger (1946)
    Cloak and Dagger
    • (uncredited)
  • John Garrick and Lilli Palmer in Suicide Legion (1939)
    Suicide Legion
  • Good Morning, Boys! (1937)
    Good Morning, Boys!
    • (uncredited)

Videos7

Trailer
Trailer 2:38
Trailer
Trailer
Trailer 1:49
Trailer
Official Trailer
Trailer 2:44
Official Trailer
Tráiler [OV]
Trailer 1:59
Tráiler [OV]
Trailer [OV]
Trailer 0:51
Trailer [OV]
Cloak and Dagger
Trailer 1:35
Cloak and Dagger
The Holcroft Covenant
Trailer 2:44
The Holcroft Covenant

Personal details

Edit
    • May 24, 1914
    • Posen, Prussia, Germany [now Poznan, Wielkopolskie, Poland]
    • January 27, 1986
    • Los Angeles, California, USA(abdominal cancer)
    • Carlos ThompsonSeptember 21, 1957 - January 27, 1986 (her death)
    • Carey Harrison
    • Irene Prador(Sibling)
  • Other works
    Stage: Appeared (as "Gillian") in "Bell Book And Candle".
  • Publicity listings
    • 3 Print Biographies
    • 6 Articles
    • 6 Pictorials
    • 10 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

Edit
  • Trivia
    She was a guest at the house of Tyrone Power on May 19, 1946 when Primula Niven, wife of actor David Niven, fell down a flight of stairs, sustaining injuries that would later lead to her death.
  • Quotes
    [on Gary Cooper] Naturally I never took my eyes off him during the first few weeks of shooting. He was the ideal movie actor. There was something unassailable about him, a dignity which he never lost even in the most commonplace pictures.

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