Favorite Austro-German 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.- Actress
- Music Department
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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.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Senta Berger was born in 1941 in Vienna, Austria to her father Josef Berger who was a musician and her mother Therese Berger, a school teacher. Senta and her father performed together when she was just four years old. She sang and her dad played the piano. At five years old, she took ballet lessons and at 14, Berger turned to acting taking private lessons. She left her private school education at 16. In 1957, Berger was discovered by famous director Willi Forst and played a small role in a film. She was accepted to the Max Reinhardt Seminar. In 1958, Berger was the youngest member at the Vienna Theater in Josefstadt. Director Bernhard Wicki and producer Artur Brauner sought after Senta producing the film The Good Soldier, by Heinz Rühmann. It succeeded and Brauner used her in several films. In 1962, Berger moved to Hollywood and starred with Charlton Heston, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Richard Harris, George Hamilton, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Yul Brynner. In 1969 she returned to Europe and was seen during the 1970's in Italian productions of various genres. In 1967, she returned to the silver screen with an Alain Delon film. In 1968, Berger played in the three-part thriller Babeck by Herbert Reinecker. 1970 was her debut as Producer of her own company. As director she put her husband's film before the camera. Further, international successful of films of her production company have included The White Rose, The Nasty Girl and Mother Courage. In addition, Berger expanded her European career in France and Italy. The birth of her two sons, Simon (b. 1972) and Luca (b. 1979) prompted Berger to turn back to the theater. In 1985/86, she managed her TV comeback in front of the German-speaking audience in the television series Kir Royal co-starring with Franz Xaver Kroetz , Dieter Hildebrandt and Billie Zöckler. Many TV series guest appearances followed.- Stunningly beautiful and charismatic blonde Barbara Bouchet was born Barbel Goutscherola on August 15th, 1943 in Liberec, Czechoslovakia, known as Reichenberg, during the German occupation. Her father, Fritz, was a war photographer.
Her family was forced to leave the country when Barbara was a little girl and her name was changed to Barbara Gutscher. They got separated, but ended up getting together again. They migrated in December 1956 and settled in San Francisco, California, where Barbara attended the prestigious Galileo High School, a polytechnic school with commercial and industrial branches. Bouchet speaks English, German and Italian with equal fluency. In an interview to Shock Cinema (Number 44), Barbara Bouchet says her name had been changed again to Bouchet at the start of her career, because it sounded like her German name.
Barbara was inspired to be a screen actress after seeing the work of German actress Christine Kaufmann in Der schweigende Engel (1954) ("The Silent Angel").
In 1959, her father submitted a photo of her to the "Miss Gidget" beauty contest, and she won. The contest was held by the local television station KPIX-TV, based on the character of what has been considered the first "beach party movie" in Hollywood history, Gidget (1959). The prize included a date with James Darren the famous star of that movie, and a screen test. The screen test never materialized.
Barbara was featured as a dancer on the teen-targeted rock'n'roll TV show, The KPIX Dance Party, from 1959 to 1962.
Bouchet began a career of teen model that led to her extensive magazine cover model (35 covers). In October 1983, at age 40, Bouchet did a nude pictorial for the Italian edition of "Penthouse" magazine.
Barbara acted in TV commercials. She made her film debut with an uncredited bit part in the comedy What a Way to Go! (1964). Bouchet soon became known for openly flaunting her spectacularly curvaceous figure in several pictures: clad in alluring silk harem robes in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965), cavorting nude on the beaches of Pearl Harbor in the World War II epic In Harm's Way (1965), and wearing a bikini for the bulk of her screen time in Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966). She also portrayed "Ursula" in Bob Fosse's outstanding musical Sweet Charity (1969), made for a nicely sultry "Miss Moneypenny" in the tongue-in-cheek 007 outing Casino Royale (1967), and had guest spots on such TV series as The Virginian (1962), Star Trek (1966), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964).
In 1970, fed-up with being typecast as a mindless sexpot in Hollywood fare, she moved to Italy. She soon became one of Italy's top actresses, carving out a fruitful niche for herself in sex comedies, giallo murder mysteries and gritty crime thrillers. Among her most memorable roles in these Italian features are the brazen spoiled rich lady "Patrizia" in Lucio Fulci's disturbing Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) ("Don't Torture A Duckling"), prostitute "Francine" in The French Sex Murders (1972) ("The French Sex Murders"), modeling agency choreographer "Kitty" in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) ("Red Queen Kills 7 Times"), saucy love interest "Scilla" in the splendidly sleazy The Mean Machine (1973), and enticing stripper "Anny" in Death Rage (1976) ("Death Rage"). Bouchet had an unforgettably steamy lesbian love scene with Rosalba Neri in Amuck! (1972) ("Amuck"). Barbara Bouchet appeared alongside fellow Bond girls Barbara Bach and Claudine Auger in Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971) ("The Black Belly of the Tarantula"). Barbara Bouchet continues to act in both films and TV shows, alike, made in Italy. Barbara popped up in a small role (as the wife of giallo star David Hemmings) in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002).
Barbara married producer Luigi Borghese in 1976. They had two sons: Alessandro Borgese (b. 1974), a chef hosting a show on the Italian cable TV; and Massimiliano Borghese (b. 1989), a bartender. During the shooting of Diamond Connection (1984) in Istanbul, there was mention of a separation in the Turkish language "New World Video & Magazine" of September 1984, but the divorce happened much later.
In 1985, Bouchet started her own production company, opened her own health club in Rome, and launched her own line of fitness books and videos.
[based on woodyanders] - Actress
- Soundtrack
Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first significant featured appearance was in Reinl's melodrama Der schweigende Engel (1954). Karin subsequently shared top billing in a classroom drama about wayward matriculation students, Ihre große Prüfung (1954). During the initial segment of her career she played nice girls, mainly wide-eyed ingénues, innocent victims and assorted naive juveniles in war and period dramas (As Long as You Live (1955)), Heimatfilms (Almenrausch und Edelweiß (1957)) and operettas (The White Horse Inn (1960)).
By 1960, a more glamorous, lithe and sensual Karin had graduated to juicer roles as heroines in Edgar Wallace potboilers (beginning with Der grüne Bogenschütze (1961)) and a series of Karl May European westerns, invariably directed by Reinl and co-starring Tarzan actor Lex Barker (a combination which proved equally successful for other crime/sci-fi franchises, including The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962)). Many of these pictures enjoyed only limited release and were rarely exhibited outside Germany.
Karin succeeded at last to break her stereotyping by playing a pathological serial killer wielding a cutthroat razor in another Wallace/Reinl outing, Room 13 (1964), and - for a total change of pace -- essayed Brunhilde in a two-part filming of the epic 'Die Nibelungen' (also directed by Reinl). With her international appeal now widening, she appeared in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), a British-West German co-production, as a scientist's daughter menaced by the titular villain. To follow was arguably her best-known international role as an early 'Bond girl', Helga Brandt (alias Number Eleven), a SPECTRE operative whose failure to eliminate J.B. results in her being dropped into a piranha-infested pool by super villain Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) in You Only Live Twice (1967). She was then engaged by Alfred Hitchcock for the part of Cuban resistance leader Juanita de Cordoba in Topaz (1969) in which her character came to a similarly sticky end. Karin's career never quite recovered from this director's rare box-office aberration. British Times reviewer and Hitchcock specialist John Russell Taylor described the picture as "generally flat, undistinguished, and lacking in any sign of positive interest or involvement on his (Hitchcock's) part". In the wake of Topaz, Karin's screen appearances became infrequent, except for a couple of guest spots on American crime shows, followed by an of unsuccessful feature film comeback attempt in the incongruous thriller Warhead (1977). She was latterly seen on German television in several episodes of Rosamunde Pilcher (1993). Karin's third husband was actor and stuntman George Robotham who predeceased her in 2007.- Actress
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After playing a lead role in Oscar and Golden Globe nominated movie "Schtonk!" by Helmut Dietl 1992, Veronica Ferres became one of the most well-known German actresses. She has worked in over one hundred and fifty feature films; more than thirty of which were American / English productions. Two Emmy-Award-winning productions stand out among the numerous films, TV series and TV movies that Veronica has done.
Her breakthrough into film was imminent following her lead role in the successful comedy "The Superwoman (Das Superweib)", followed by the Academy Award nominated "Schtonk!", "Rossini" and "Saviours in the night". Recent films include "Short Term Memory Loss", and the remarkable comedy "Under German Beds (Unter Deutschen Betten)". In 2018 Veronica was featured in the film "Siberia", alongside Keanu Reeves, as well as "Berlin, I Love You" with Helen Mirren.
Among the highlights of her lengthy career in the international film-making world, include work with Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Catherine the Great", John Malkovich in "Ladies Room", "Klimt", "The Giacomo Variation" and "Les Misérables", Jeff Goldblum in "Adam Resurrected", Nicholas Cage in "Pay the Ghost", Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito and Harvey Keitel in "The Comedian", Michael Shannon & Gabriel Garcia Bernal in Werner Herzog's "Salt and Fire", and Sir Ben Kingsley in "Death of an Author".
Some of her recent works include Nicholas Jarecki's "Crisis", alongside Gary Oldman and Luke Evans, the mystery thriller "The darker the lake" directed by Lok Kwan Woo and the romantic comedy "Love, Weddings and Other Disasters" starring Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons. Furthermore she appeared in "Best Sellers" with Michael Caine and in "Every breath you take" with Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan and Sam Claflin. In 2020 she starred in the thriller "Zero Contact" alongside Anthony Hopkins. Her short film Malou was on the Academy Award short-list for 2020. In 2021, she shot "Paradise Highway" with Juliette Binoche and Morgan Freeman, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival.
In 2022 she starred in the action thriller "The Bricklayer" alongside Aaron Eckhart and Nina Dobrev. Furthermore, Veronica played a leading role in the popular German television series "Tatort" in the episode "Königinnen" directed by Rudi Gaul.
In the same year, Veronica Ferres played in the new film adaptation of Robert E. Howard's original Marvel comic "Red Sonja", directed by M.J. Bassett the mother of Red Sonja as well as the Goddess Ashera alongside Mathila Lutz, Wallis Day and Robert Sheehan. Recently she finished the english language streaming series "El Turco" in Budapest.
In 2023, Veronica Ferres shot the American feature film "Unholy Trinity" in Montana, directed by Richard Gray, where she played the female lead alongside Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson. She also starred in the ZDFneo horror series "Hameln" directed by Rainier Matsutani, which is based on the legend of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin", as well as the fictional feature film "Andere Eltern", directed by Lutz Heineking, jr.
She is an alumna of University of Munich where she studied German literature, psychology and drama. Furthermore she teaches at the German University of Television and Film school in Munich.
A few of her personal awards include: The Adolph Grimme Prize, The German Television Prize, two Golden Camera Awards, The Bavarian Film Award, The Bavarian Television Prize, two Bambi Awards as well as an Emmy for "The Manns" (Best Mini Series).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Martina Gedeck was born in Munich. After spending a year in the US, she studied drama at the Berlin University of the Arts. Martina's film career began while she was still at drama school. Her filmography covers practically all genres of film.
Gedeck has won a total of 23 major cinema and TV awards. She was nominated as Europe's best actress on her role in "Mostly Martha". The film was later remade with Catherine Zeta-Jones playing her role.
Her films were twice selected as Germany's entry to the Oscars. In 2007, "The Lives of Others" with her in the lead role won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2009 she again had the title role in Germany's Oscar contender "The Baader Meinhof Complex", also nominated for the Golden Globes.
Martina Gedeck resides in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
- Director
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Karoline Herfurth was born on 22 May 1984 in Berlin, Germany. She is an actress and director, known for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), Text for You (2016) and Einfach mal was Schönes (2022).- Actress
- Producer
Hannah Herzsprung was born on 7 September 1981 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for The Reader (2008), Who Am I (2014) and Four Minutes (2006).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Nina Hoss was born on 7 July 1975 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Phoenix (2014), Tár (2022) and A Most Wanted Man (2014). She has been married to Alex Silva since 2015.- After school, Jentsch turned to acting. She attended the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Jentsch then began her acting career in the theater. In 2001 she joined the ensemble of the Munich Kammerspiele, where she masterfully interpreted Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello", Sophocles' "Antigone" and other classic stage roles. After she had already received the Max Reinhardt Prize in 2000 for her participation in the Berlin production of "The Persians", Jentsch was named the best young actress by the magazine "Theater aktuell" in 2002 for her acting achievements on stage.
In the meantime, Jentsch had already made her cinema debut in Judith Kennel's successful film "Angry Kisses" in 2000. In addition to her theater work, she was also featured in several television productions such as an episode of "Praxis Bülowbogen" (2000), in the film "And the Bride knew of nothing" (2002) and in the "Tatort" episode "Bitteres Brot" ( 2003). The actress continued to shine in the cinema in "Julietta" (2001) by Christoph Stark and in Sven Taddicken's "My Brother, the Vampire" (2001). She then appeared in the internationally acclaimed Hitler film "Downfall" (2004) under the direction of Oliver Hirschbiegel. Jentsch then played the leading role in Hans Weingartner's "The Fat Years Are Over" (2004), for which she won the Bavarian Film Prize for Best Young Actress.
This was followed by another leading role in "Schneeland" (2004) by Hans Wilhelm Geißendörfer. Under the direction of Marc Rothemund, Jentsch continued to play the leading role in the semi-documentary drama "Sophie Scholl - The Last Days" (2005), which was shown for the first time at the 55th Berlinale in February 2005 as one of the three German competition entries. For her performance in this film, Jentsch was awarded the "Silver Bear" as best actress. At the 55th German Film Awards in July 2005, Jentsch received the award for Best Leading Role. A little later, "Sophie Scholl" was nominated for an Oscar as a German contribution. - Actress
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Born in Austria to a French mother and a German father, young Christine Kaufmann conquered the hearts of post-war German movie audiences in movies like Der schweigende Engel (1954), Ein Herz schlägt für Erika (1956) and, most famously, Rosen-Resli (1954). Discovered at the tender age of six, Christine was soon the breadwinner for her family. This quickly changed when puberty destroyed her blooming career as "the sweet innocent child" in West Germany. Her ambitious mother, by now Christine's manager, relocated to Rome with her. In Italy, her Lolita-like qualities were appreciated and used in movies like The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) in which, at age 13, she played the love-interest of "Mr. Universe" Steve Reeves (then 32). Due to her hard work as a child (between 1952 and 1959 she starred in 18 films!), she was never able to attend school; yet, by the age of 14, young Christine was fluent in German, French, Italian, Spanish and English.
In 1959, Christine headed to London to audition for the role of Karen in Exodus (1960). Director Otto Preminger chose Jill Haworth over Kaufmann but was still so impressed with her that he recommended her for a substantial part in Gottfried Reinhardt's courtroom drama Town Without Pity (1961). The movie, which starred Kirk Douglas, E.G. Marshall and Robert Blake, became an international success and earned Kaufmann a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer. After a string of rather forgettable movies in West Germany, France, and Italy, she flew to Argentina to co-star alongside Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis in Taras Bulba (1962). Curtis, who was already 36, fell immediately for the 16-year-old German starlet, left his wife Janet Leigh and his two daughters and started to live with Christine in both Europe and in Los Angeles. (In the US, they had to keep their relationship on the DL because Christine was still underage and therefore jail bait.) Shortly after her 18th birthday, Curtis and Kaufmann got married in Las Vegas. Kirk Douglas was their best man. One of Curtis' demands was that she would retire from acting after the wedding, and Christine gladly acquiesced to his request; actually she had been dreaming of retiring since her success with Rosen-Resli (1954) which had ended her once-peaceful childhood abruptly. She later claimed that she'd never really been interested in becoming an actress in the first place and was more or less forced into it by her parents: "I was an obedient girl and wanted to make my mother happy, so I simply did what I was being told. Unfortunately, once you are famous, there's no way back, and since I didn't have a formal school education, I could not fulfill my dream of studying archaeology and art history."
Her last movie, a droll comedy titled Wild and Wonderful (1964), was released in June 1964 to mixed reviews. In July, she gave birth to her first daughter, Alexandra Curtis. Christine was 19. Two years later, a second daughter, Allegra Curtis, arrived. Her husband, who already had two daughters with his first wife, had wanted a son and was unable to hide his disappointment. By late 1966, Tony Curtis was pretty much spending his time with other women, while Christine, living the life of a 40-year-old Hollywood matron at the age of 20, was slowly growing up. In 1968, she left Curtis and filed for divorce in Mexico, because she didn't want any of his money. She took her daughters and moved back to Europe.
By the early 1970s, Christine worked steadily in theatre, on TV and occasionally in movies: "I worked with discipline, but without any interest." Art house directors like Werner Schroeter, Percy Adlon, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast her in sometimes interesting, but mostly forgettable movies. In 1971, she did another American movie (filmed in Madrid), the tepid, too-artsy-for-its-own-good Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) with Jason Robards and Herbert Lom, and in 1987 she was offered a wonderfully written part in Bagdad Cafe (1987) with Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder and Jack Palance which became one of the most enchantingly beautiful movies of the decade. But Christine's real passion belonged to the theatre where she acted under maverick directors like Peter Zadek and Michael Bogdanov.
She made a lasting impression on German television with her hilariously witty portrayal of Olga Behrens in Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz (1983), written by Patrick Süskind.
In the 1990s, now approaching 50, Christine took up writing, publishing several books on beauty, health, and fame, including three autobiographies. She also became a business woman with her own line of cosmetics which made her a fairly wealthy woman. Generous as she was, she financed (with the help of ex-stepdaughter Jamie Lee Curtis) her grandchildren's education.
After Curtis, Christine Kaufmann re-married three times, all marriages ending in divorce. She lived all over the world, including five years in Morocco. In March 2017, shortly after her 72nd birthday, Christine died of leukemia (like her mother) in Munich. She wanted to be buried next to her mother and grandmother in Vernon, just outside Paris, a wish that was granted by her older brother and her daughters.- Sibel Kekilli is a German actress of Turkish origin. With her debut in Fatih Akin's movie "Head On" she gained major public attention. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2004 and her acting performance received several national and international prizes, among them the highly prestigious German film award Lola for Best Actress.
Since then Kekilli played in several national and international productions like "Eve Dönüs" ("Home coming"), awarded Best Actress at the Antalya Film Festival, aside with Josef Bierbichler and Hanna Schygulla in "Winter Journey" ("Winterreise) or the leading role Umay in Feo Aladags "When We Leave" ("Die Fremde") in 2010 which lead to Best Actress Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and once again the Lola award among others.
Apart from other movie roles, as the very successful comedy "What a man" (2011) directed by Matthias Schweighöfer, she has been investigating in the highly regarded German series "Tatort" since 2010.
She has also become widely known as part of the main cast for her role as Shae in the HBO award-winning series "Game of Thrones" (Season 1 until Season 4). - Actress
- Producer
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Nastassja Kinski was born Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski on January 24, 1961 in Berlin, Germany, the daughter of German actor Klaus Kinski. In 1976, she met director Roman Polanski, who urged her to study method acting with Lee Strasberg in the United States. Kinski starred in the Italian romantic drama Stay as You Are (1978) with Marcello Mastroianni, gaining her recognition in the United States after the film's release on December 21, 1979. She played the title character in Polanski's romantic drama Tess (1979), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891).
Kinski starred in Francis Ford Coppola's romantic musical One from the Heart (1981), her first film made in the United States. The film became a box office bomb and was a major loss for Coppola's production company Zoetrope Studios. She also starred in the erotic horror movie Cat People (1982) with Malcolm McDowell, a remake of the 1942 classic of the same name. She appeared in Wim Wenders' drama movie Paris, Texas (1984) with Harry Dean Stanton and Dean Stockwell. One of her most acclaimed films, the film won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival.
During the 1990s, Kinski appeared in a number of American films, including the action movie Terminal Velocity (1994) opposite Charlie Sheen, One Night Stand (1997), Your Friends and Neighbors (1998), John Landis' Susan's Plan (1998), and The Lost Son (1999). She has appeared in more than 60 films in Europe and the United States.- 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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- Camera and Electrical Department
Diane Kruger was born Diane Heidkrüger in Algermissen, near Hildesheim, Germany, to Maria-Theresa, a bank employee, and Hans-Heinrich Heidkrüger, a computer specialist. She studied ballet with the Royal Ballet in London before an injury ended her career. She returned to Germany and became a top fashion model. She later pursued acting and relocated to Paris at the suggestion of filmmaker Luc Besson (The Fifth Element (1997)). She married French actor Guillaume Canet (The Beach (2000)) in 2001.- Actress
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Born on 12 November 1978 in Bucharest, Romania, Alexandra Maria Lara fled to Germany with her parents when she was four and half years old. After graduating at the French High School, she studied acting at the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg from 1997 and 2000, but had already played leading characters in several TV shows and movies such as Die Bubi Scholz Story (1998). Due to her critically acclaimed performance in The Tunnel (2001), she has appeared in several successful national and international projects, most notably the Oscar nominated Downfall (2004).- 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.
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Mack was born in Germany but moved with her family to Long Beach, California, when she was 2. She began acting at 4 with print work and commercials, and began studying at The Young Actors Space in Los Angeles when she was 7. Before joining the cast of Smallville (2001), Allison starred in the short-lived and sorely under-rated Fox television comedy Opposite Sex (2000). Prior to that, she was a regular on Hiller and Diller (1997), working alongside great talents such as Richard Lewis, Kevin Nealon, and Eugene Levy. Allison has also guest-starred in the WB family drama 7th Heaven (1996) as a teenager caught up in the "cutting" trend.
Mack has starred in many movies for television, including the cable film My Horrible Year! (2001), which was directed by Eric Stoltz and starring Karen Allen, Mimi Rogers, and Stoltz himself. She was also in A Private Matter (1992) with Sissy Spacek and Aidan Quinn, Living a Lie (1991) with Peter Coyote and Jill Eikenberry, Unlikely Angel (1996) with Dolly Parton and Roddy McDowall, and Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996) starring Mary Tyler Moore and Linda Lavin. Allison is also an accomplished dancer and singer and she currently living in Los Angeles. She enjoys reading, going to movies and plays and spending time with her friends and family.- Actress
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Born on 13 August 1971 in Düsseldorf, Germany, as the daughter of former German national ice hockey keeper Rainer Makatsch. After studying politics and sociology at the University of Düsseldorf for two years and an apprenticeship as dressmaker, she was hired by newborn TV music channel VIVA in 1993 and hosted popular shows such as Interaktiv (1996). Also presenting the charts show Bravo TV (1985), the media considered her the prototype of a "girlie girl". Her first appearance in a movie, Jailbirds (1996), surprised the critics and slowly changed her image. In the following years, she played leading characters in successful projects such as Am I Beautiful? (1998) and Gripsholm (2000). Living in London from 1999 to 2005, she also appeared in English language movies, most prominently Love Actually (2003). After another convincing performance on Margarete Steiff (2005), she is considered a respected actress anyway. In 2009 she played the main role in 'Hilde', the biographical movie about the famous German actress/singer Hildegard Knef. Her performance was a tour de force.- Actress
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Marisa Mell was born on 24 February 1939 in Graz, Austria. She was an actress, known for Danger: Diabolik (1968), The Great Swindle (1971) and Under Siege (1980). She was married to Henri Tucci. She died on 16 May 1992 in Vienna, Austria.- Actress
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Tia Mowry was born on 6 July 1978 in Gelnhausen, Hesse, Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for Sister, Sister (1994), The Hot Chick (2002) and The Game (2006). She was previously married to Cory Hardrict.Also her Twin Sister Tamera Mowry-Housley- Actress
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Franka Potente was born on 22 July 1974 in the German city of Münster, to Hildegard, a medical assistant, and Dieter Potente, a teacher, and raised in the nearby town of Dülmen. After her graduation in 1994, she went to the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule, a drama school in Munich, but soon broke off to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York. After a notable debut in Nach Fünf im Urwald (1995), the role of the heroine in Run Lola Run (1998), directed by her then longtime companion Tom Tykwer was her national breakthrough. After some other successful movies in Germany, she starred in several Hollywood productions, most prominently The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and lived one year in Los Angeles. After her return to Berlin, she continues working with German and international directors.- Actress
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Elisabeth Rohm will next be seen in the Roger Ailes biopic FAIR AND BALANCED for Lionsgate and director Jay Roach, portraying Fox News host Martha MacCallum, as well as Ted Melfi's THE STARLING opposite Melissa McCarthy.
Elisabeth recently wrapped production on the Lifetime feature FAMILY PICTURES opposite Justina Machado and previously co-starred in David O. Russell's JOY opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. This was her second collaboration with David following the huge success of AMERICAN HUSTLE in which she had a pivotal role opposite Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Amy Adams (the film won numerous accolades for its ensemble cast including the coveted SAG Award and both films were nominated for Oscars.)
Elisabeth also had a key role in TRIBES OF PALOS VERDES opposite Jennifer Garner for IFC Films and Relativity Media. Other notable film credits include TRAFFICKED with Ashley Judd and GOING UNDER opposite Bruce Willis and Jason Momoa.
Elisabeth also has a rich body of work in the television space notably starring as "Serena Southerlyn" on LAW & ORDER for five seasons and "Kate Lockley" on The WB series ANGEL. More recently, Elisabeth co-starred with Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q on STALKER for CBS and starred opposite Eric Dance on THE LAST SHIP for TNT and Michael Bay. She also had memorable arcs on Will Arnett's Netflix series FLAKED and The CW hit show JANE THE VIRGIN.- Actress
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Jeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army, and his wife Sharon, a social worker. She and her older brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at age 11, her father retired from the Army and her family settled down in Paducah, Kentucky. After graduating from Lone Oak High School in 1986, she attended Northwestern University Chicago as a National Merit Scholar. While studying there, she won a number of beauty contests (a.o.- sixth annual Miss Northwestern Alpha Delta Phi Pageant in 1989).
With a B.S. degree in Theatre, she came to Los Angeles, California and since then she has been on several television series and films - including popular series like Matlock (1986), Melrose Place (1992) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995) as well as Dark Skies (1996). Her television experience also includes roles in a variety of telefilms including Nightmare in Columbia County (1991), NBC's In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco (1993), Co-ed Call Girl (1996), The Sentinel (1996), Men Cry Bullets (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000), The Last Man (2000) and Down with Love (2003). Jeri Ryan resides in an area of Los Angeles, California with her husband chef Christophe Eme, her son Alex and daughter Gisele.- Actress
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Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family. Her parents were Emilie (Königsberger) and Heinrich Rainer, a businessman. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a young actress, she was discovered by the legendary theater director Max Reinhardt and became part of his company in Vienna, Austria. "I was supposed to be very gifted, and he heard about me. He wanted me to be part of his theater," Rainer recounted in a 1997 interview. She joined Reinhardt's theatrical company in Vienna and spent years developing as an actress under his tutelage. As part of Reinhardt's company, Rainer became a popular stage actress in Berlin and Vienna in the early 1930s. Rainer was a natural talent for Reinhardt's type of staging, which required an impressionistic acting style.
Rainer, who made her screen debut as a teenager and appeared in three other German-language films in the early 1930s, terminated her European career when the Austrian Adolf Hitler consolidated his power in Germany. With his vicious anti-Semitism bringing about the Draconian Nuremberg Laws severely curtailing the rights of Germany's Jews, and efforts to expand that regime into the Sudetenland and Austria, Hitler and his Nazi government was proving a looming threat to European Jewry. Rainer had been spotted by a talent scout, who offered her a seven-year contract with the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The 25-year-old Rainer took the deal and emigrated to the United States.
She made her American debut in the movie Escapade (1935), replacing Myrna Loy, who was originally slated for the part. It was her luck to have William Powell as her co-star in her first Hollywood film, as he mentored her, teaching her how to act in front of the camera. Powell, whom Rainer remembers as "a dear man" and "a very fine person," lobbied MGM. boss Louis B. Mayer, reportedly telling him, "You've got to star this girl, or I'll look like an idiot."
During the making of "Escapade", Rainer met, and fell in love with, the left-wing playwright Clifford Odets, then at the height of his fame. They were married in 1937. It was not a happy union. MGM cast Rainer in support of Powell in the title role of the The Great Ziegfeld (1936), its spectacular bio-epic featuring musical numbers that recreated his "Follies" shows on Broadway. As Anna Held, Ziegfeld's common-law wife, Rainer excelled in the musical numbers, but it is for her telephone scene that she is most remembered. "The Great Ziegfeld" was a big hit and went on to win the Academy Award as Best Picture of 1936. Rainer received her first of two successive Best Actress Oscars for playing Held. The award was highly controversial at the time as she was a relative unknown and it was only her first nomination, but also because her role was so short and relatively minor that it better qualified for a supporting nomination. (While 1936 was the first year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honored supporting players, her studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, listed her as a lead player, then got out its block vote for her.) Compounding the controversy was the fact that Rainer beat out such better known and more respected actresses as Carole Lombard (her sole Oscar nomination) in My Man Godfrey (1936), previous Best Actress winner Norma Shearer (her fifth nomination) in Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Irene Dunne (her second of five unsuccessful nominations) in Theodora Goes Wild (1936). Some of the bitchery was directed toward Louis B. Mayer, whom non-MGM Academy members resented for his ability to manipulate Academy votes. Other critics of her first Oscar win claimed it was the result of voters being unduly impressed with the great budget ($2 million) of "The Great Ziegfeld" rather than great acting. Most observers agree that Rainer won her Oscar as the result of her moving and poignant performance in just one single scene in the picture, the famous telephone scene in which the broken-hearted Held congratulates Ziegfeld over the telephone on his upcoming marriage to Billie Burke while trying to retain her composure and her dignity. During the scene, the camera is entirely focused on Rainer, and she delivers a tour-de-force performance. Seventy years later, it remains one of the most famous scenes in movie history. With another actress playing Held, the scene could have been mawkish, but Rainer brought the pathos of the scene out and onto film. She based her interpretation of the scene on Jean Cocteau's play "La Voix Humaine". "Cocteau's play is just a telephone conversation about a woman who has lost her beloved to another woman", Rainer remembered. "That is the comparison. As it fit into the Ziegfeld story, that's how I wrote it. It's a daily happening, not just in Cocteau." In an interview held 60 years after the film's release, Rainer was dismissive of the performance. "I was never proud of anything", she said. "I just did it like everything else. To do a film - let me explain to you - it's like having a baby. You labor, you labor, you labor, and then you have it. And then it grows up and it grows away from you. But to be proud of giving birth to a baby? Proud? No, every cow can do that."
Rainer would allay any back-biting from Hollywood's bovines over her first Oscar with her performance as O-Lan in MGM producer Irving Thalberg's spectacular adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", the former Boy Wonder's final picture before his untimely death. The role won Rainer her second Best Actress Award. The success of The Good Earth (1937) was rooted in its realism, and its realism was enhanced by Rainer's acting opposite the legendary Paul Muni as her husband. When Thalberg cast Muni in the role of Wang Lung, he had to abandon any thought of casting the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as O-Lan as the Hays Office would not allow the hint of miscegenation, even between an actual Chinese woman and a Caucuasian actor in yellow-face drag. So, Thalberg gave Rainer the part, and she made O-Lan her own. She refused to wear a heavy makeup, and her elfin look helped her to assay a Chinese woman with results far superior to those of Myrna Loy in her Oriental vamp phase or Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed (1944). In the late 1990s, Rainer praised her director, Sidney Franklin, as "wonderful", and explained that she used an acting technique similar to "The Method" being pioneered by her husband's Group Theatre comrades back in New York. "I worked from inside out", she said. "It's not for me, putting on a face, or putting on makeup, or making masquerade. It has to come from inside out. I knew what I wanted to do and he let me do it." The win made Rainer the first two-time Oscar winner in an acting category and the first to win consecutive acting awards (Spencer Tracy, her distaff honoree for Captains Courageous (1937) would follow her as a consecutive acting Oscar winner the next year, and Walter Brennan, Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for Come and Get It (1936) the year Rainer won her first, would tie them both in 1937 with his win for Kentucky (1938) and trump them with his third win for The Westerner (1940), a record subsequently tied by Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, and surpassed by Katharine Hepburn.)
Rainer's career soon went into free-fall and collapsed, as she became the first notable victim of the "Oscar curse", the phenomenon that has seem many a performer's career take a nose-dive after winning an Academy Award. "For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me", Rainer said. A non-conformist, Rainer rejected Hollywood's values of Hollywood. In the late 1990s, she said, "I came from Europe where I was with a wonderful theater group, and I worked. The only thing on my mind was to do good work. I didn't know what an Academy Award was." MGM boss Mayer, the founding force behind the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, had to force her to attend the Awards banquet to receive her Oscar. She rebelled against the studio due to the movies that MGM forced her into after "The Good Earth".
In one case, director Dorothy Arzner had been assigned by MGM producer Joseph M. Mankiewicz (whose wife, Rose Stradner had been Rainer's understudy in the Vienna State Theater) in 1937 to direct Rainer in "The Girl from Trieste", an unproduced Ferenc Molnár play about a prostitute trying to go reform herself who discovers the hypocrisies of the respectable class which she aspires to. After Thalberg's death in 1936, Mayer's lighter aesthetic began to rule the roost at MGM. Mayer genuinely believed in the goodness of women and motherhood and put women on a pedestal; he once told screenwriter Frances Marion that he never wanted to see anything produced by MGM that would embarrass his wife and two daughters.
Without the more sophisticated Thalberg at the studio to run interference, Molnar's play was rewritten so that it was no longer about a prostitute, but a slightly bitter Cinderella story with a happy ending. Retitled by Mankiewicz as The Bride Wore Red (1937), Rainer withdrew and was replaced by Joan Crawford. In a 1976 interview in "The New York Times", Arzner claimed that Rainer "had been suspended for marrying a Communist" (Clifford Odets). This is unlikely as MGM, like all Hollywood studios, had known or suspected communists on its payroll, most of whose affiliations were known by MGM vice president E.J. Mannix. (Mannix, one of whose functions was responsibility for security at the studio, once said it would have been impossible to fire them all, as "the communists" were the studio's best writers.) The studio never took action against alleged communists until an industry-wide agreement to do so was sealed at the Waldorf Conference of 1947, which was held in reaction to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launching a Hollywood witch hunt.
It was more likely that Rainer, fussy over her projects and wanting to use her Academy Award prominence to ensure herself better roles, withdrew on her own due to her lack of enthusiasm for the reformulated product. In the late 1990s, Rainer recalled the satisfaction of being a European stage actress. "One day we were on a big tour", she told an interviewer in the late 1990s. "We did a play by Pirandello, and Reinhardt was in the theater. I shall never forget, it was the greatest compliment I ever got, better than any Academy Award. He came to me, looked at me and said - we were never called by first names - 'Rainer, how did you do this?' It was so wonderful. 'How did you create this?' I was so startled and happy. That was my Academy Award." Rainer still is dismissive of the Academy Awards. "I can't watch the Oscars," she said. "Everybody thanking their mother, their father, their grandparents, their nurse - it's a crazy, horrible." She blames the studio and Mayer for the rapid decline in her career. "What they did with me upset me very much", she said in a 1997 interview. "I was dreaming naturally like anyone to do something very good, but after I got the two Academy Awards the studio thought, it doesn't matter what she gets. They threw all kinds of stuff on me, and I thought, no, I didn't want to be an actress."
Mayer pulled his famous emotional routines when Rainer, whom he wanted to turn into a glamorous star, would demand meatier roles. "He would cry phony tears", she recalled. Mayer had opposed her being cast as O-Lan in "The Good Earth", but Thalberg, who had a connection with MGM capo di tutti capi Nicholas Schenck, the president of MGM corporate parent Loew's, Inc., appealed to Schenck, who overrode Mayer's veto. (Mayer, who was involved in a power struggle with Thalberg before the latter's death, had opposed his filming Pearl Buck's novel. Mayer's reasoning was that American audiences wouldn't patronize movies about American farmers, so what made anyone think they'd flock to see a film about Chinese farmers, especially one with such a big budget, estimated at $2.8 million. (Upon release, the film barely broke even.) Thalberg died during the filming of "The Good Earth" (the only film of his released by MGM whose title credits bore his name, in the form of a posthumous tribute).
Rainer felt lost without her protector. She recalled that Mayer "didn't know what to do with me, and that made me so unhappy. I was on the stage with great artists, and everything was so wonderful. I was in a repertory theater, and every night I played something else." Rainer asked to play Nora in a film of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" or portray Madame Curie, but instead, Mayer - now in complete control of the studio - had her cast in The Toy Wife (1938), a movie she actually wound up liking, as she was charmed by her co-star, the urbane, intellectually and politically enlightened Melvyn Douglas. She recalls Douglas, ultimately a double-Oscar winner like herself, as her favorite leading man. "He was intelligent, and he was interested also in other things than acting."
Her problems with the culture of Hollywood, or the lack thereof, were worsening. The lack of intellectual conversation or concern with ideas by the denizens of the movie colony she was forced to work with was depressing. Hollywood was an unsophisticated place where materialism, such as the stars' preoccupation with clothes, was paramount. As she tells it, "Soon after I was there in Hollywood, for some reason I was at a luncheon with Robert Taylor sitting next to me, and I asked him, 'Now, what are your ideas or what do you want to do', and his answer was that he wanted to have 10 good suits to wear, elegant suits of all kinds, that was his idea. I practically fell under the table."
MGM teamed her with fellow Oscar-winner Tracy in Big City (1937), a movie about conflict between rival taxi drivers. The memory of the movie disgusted her. "Supposedly it wasn't a bad film, but I thought it was a bad film!" She was also cast in The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937), reteaming her with "Ziegfeld" co-star Powell, a movie she didn't like, as she couldn't understand its story. A detective tale, the script thoroughly confused Rainer, who was expected to soldier on like a good employee. Instead, she resisted.
After appearing in The Great Waltz (1938) and Dramatic School (1938), her career was virtually over by 1938. She never made another film for MGM. "I just had to get away", she said about Hollywood. "I couldn't bear this total concentration and interviews on oneself, oneself, oneself. I wanted to learn, and to live, to go all over the world, to learn by seeing things and experiencing things, and Hollywood seemed very narrow." When World War II broke out in Europe, Rainer was joined by her family, as her German-born father was also an American citizen, allowing them all to escape Hitler and the Holocaust. Even before the outbreak of war, Rainer had been very worried about the state of affairs of the world, and she could not abide the escapist trifles that MGM wanted to cast her in. When she protested, Mayer told Rainer that if she defied him, he would blackball her in Hollywood.
Disturbed by Hollywood's apathy over fascism in Europe and Asia and by labor unrest and poverty in the U.S., she decided to walk out on her contract. She and Odets returned to New York. They were divorced in 1940. "Hollywood was a very strange place", she remembered. "To me, it was like a huge hotel with a huge door, one of those rotunda doors. On one side people went in, heads high, and very soon they came out on the other side, heads hanging." Her frustration with Hollywood was so complete, she abandoned movie acting in the early 1940s, after making the World War II drama Hostages (1943) for Paramount.
She made her Broadway debut in the play "A Kiss for Cinderella", which was staged by Lee Strasberg, which opened at the Music Box Theatre on March 10, 1942 and closed April 18th after 48 performances. Rainer then worked for the war effort during World War II, appearing at war bond rallies. She went on a tour of North Africa and Italy for the Army Special Service, socializing with soldiers to build their morale, and supplying them with books. The experience changed her life, allowing her to get over the shyness she'd had all her life. It also broadened her experience, forcing her to deal with the obvious fact that there were more important things than movie acting, which had proven unfulfilling to her.
Fortunately, Rainer found happiness in a long-lived marriage with the publisher Robert Knittel, a wealthy man whom she married in 1945. The couple had a daughter and made their home mostly in Switzerland and England as Rainer essentially left acting behind, although she did do some television in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Her retirement from the movies lasted for 53 years, until her brief comeback in The Gambler (1997), a movie based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's eponymous story. In the film, Rainer played the role of the matriarch of an aristocratic Russian family in the 1860s who is in hock due to the family members' obsession with gambling.
Toward the end of her life, Rainer lived in a luxurious flat in Eaton Square in London's Belgravia district, in a building where Vivien Leigh once lived. Blessed with a good memory, she claimed she could not remember the 1937 Academy Awards ceremony, when she won her first Oscar. She says the glamour of the event was out of sync with her life at the time, which was one of great sadness. "I married Clifford Odets. The marriage was for both of us a failure. He wanted me to be his little wife and a great actress at the same time. Somehow I could not live up to all of that."
She had intriguing offers during her long retirement. Federico Fellini had wanted Rainer for a role in La Dolce Vita (1960), but though she admired the director, she didn't like the script and turned it down. Rainer occasionally plied her craft as an actress on the stage. She made one more stab at Broadway, appearing in a 1950 production of Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea", which was staged by Sam Wanamaker and Terese Hayden and co-starred Steven Hill, one of the founding members of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. The play was a flop, running just 16 performances. "I was living in America and was on the stage there - sporadically. I always lived more than I worked. Which doesn't mean that I do not love my profession, and every moment I was in it gave me great satisfaction and happiness."
Rainer had no regrets over not becoming the star she might have been. She outlived all of the legendary stars of her era, which likely is the best revenge for the loss of her career after bidding adieu to a company town she could not abide.- Actress
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Shortly after being discovered by director Percy Adlon in a 1977 production of "Adele Spitzeder", Marianne Sägebrecht was cast as Madame Sanchez/Mrs. Sancho in the Director's TV special Herr Kischott (1980), a spin on "Don Quixote". Eventually, the actress became a muse (for lack of better term) to Adlon and consecutively starred in leading roles in several of the Director's films, one of which garnered Sägebrecht commercial success: the performance as Jasmin Münchgstettner, a woman who mysteriously appears just to bring luminosity to the old, beaten down, and spiritually deprived Bagdad Café in, Bagdad Cafe (1987), earned her a German Film Award.- Actress
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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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Lead icon of the influential New German Cinema of the 70's & 80's, Schygulla's natural blonde beauty and amazing versatility keep her among the world's top actresses. She won best actress at Cannes in 1983 for The Story of Piera (1983) (aka "The Story of Piera"), an Italian/German co-production. The Turkish/German co-production, The Edge of Heaven (2007) (aka "The Edge of Heaven"), won the 2007 Cannes award for best screenplay. The now silver-haired actress appears to have shunned plastic surgery.
One of many protégés of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who gave Schygulla especially tender treatment and nurturing, while he terrorized, manipulated, and slept with many of the other actors and filmmakers Fassbinder developed in his incestuous family-like theatrical and film troupes.
Over 12 years, Hanna Schygulla appeared in 23 Fassbinder movies (including his first feature film), the most-acclaimed being The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (aka "The Marriage of Maria Braun") (for which she won the Silver Bear), Lili Marleen (1981) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). After a disagreement with Fassbinder, she did not appear in his final 4 movies. Their mentor/muse relationship is often favorably compared with that of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. Schygulla met Fassbinder while she was studying romance languages and taking acting lessons in Munich, then became a member of his collective theatre troupe, "Munich Action Theatre", which eventually evolved into his film group.
After Fassbinder's 1982 death, she appeared in a few commercial films, and when she does act now, concentrates on complex roles in films with unique, international social messages. Her better known non-Fassbinder movies include Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again (1991), Casanova (1987) (with Faye Dunaway), Andrzej Wajda's A Love in Germany (1983) (aka "A Love in Germany") and Margarethe von Trotta's Sheer Madness (1983) (aka "Sheer Madness"). She's renowned for portraying strong, sensual women, and her language ability enables her to appear in films produced by many countries. Her singing was featured in Lili Marleen (1981) and Sheer Madness (1983) (aka "Sheer Madness"). Since 1997, she has turned away from movie acting, primarily to chanson singing, recording CDs, appearing in the movie, Hanna Schygulla Sings (1999) and, in 2007, a one-woman autobiographical musical (including songs of Janis Joplin, Édith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Brecht). She was the lead and sang in a live Vanessa Beecroft conceptual art piece in a German castle, with Fassbinder's long-time associate, Irm Hermann, plus 23 other women. Schygulla has worked on producing films about Berlin's Holocaust memorial, and about her work with Fassbinder.
Many of Fassbinder's film plots reflect his bizarre working relations with cast and crew, and he often reserved the most glamorous costumes and dramatic roles for Hanna Schygulla, intentionally pressuring his other talented actresses, such as his feisty ex-wife Ingrid Caven, and the abused Irm Hermann. The extremely tense relationships in the all-female The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (aka "Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant") somewhat reflect real-life interactions of Hermann, Schygulla (both are in the movie), Fassbinder, and his mother.
Hann Schygulla's childhood family situation somewhat parallels her role, typifying Germany's moral dilemmas at the end of World War II, in The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (aka "The Marriage of Maria Braun"). Schygulla was born on Christmas Day 1943, in Kattowice, Upper Silesia (then a section of Poland annexed by the Third Reich). Her German father was an infantryman in Italy, who was in a POW camp until she was 5. After the war, the German population was expelled from the Kattowice area.- Actress
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This gorgeous Teutonic temptress was one of Hollywood's most captivating imports of the 1960s. Blonde and beautiful, Berlin-born Elke Sommer, with her trademark pouty lips, high cheekbones and sky-high bouffant hairdos, proved irresistible to American audiences, whether adorned in lace or leather, or donning lingerie or lederhosen . She was born in Berlin-Spandau on November 5, 1940 with the unlikely name of Else Schletz-Ho to a Lutheran minister and his wife. The family was forced to evacuate to Erlangen, during World War II in 1942, a small university town in the southern region of Germany. It was here that her parents first introduced her to water colors and her lifelong passion for painting was ignited. Her father's death in 1955, when she was only 14, interrupted her education and she relocated to Great Britain, where she learned English and made ends meet as an au pair. She eventually attended college back in Germany and entertained plans to become a diplomatic translator but, instead, decided to try modeling.
After winning a beauty title ("Miss Viareggio Turistica") while on vacation in Italy, she caught the attention of renowned film actor/director Vittorio De Sica and began performing on screen. Her debut film was in the Italian feature, Uomini e nobiluomini (1959), which starred DeSica and was directed by Giorgio Bianchi. Following a few more Italian pictures, which included her first starring role in Love, the Italian Way (1960), also directed by Bianchi, Elke began making a name for herself in German films, as well, and gradually upgraded her status to European sex symbol. A pin-up favorite, she appeared fetchingly in both dramas and comedies, with such continental features as Daniella by Night (1961), Sweet Violence (1962) and her first English-speaking picture, Why Bother to Knock (1961), to her credit.
Hollywood naturally became intrigued and she moved there in the early 1960s to try and tap into the American market. Her sexy innocence made a vivid impression in the all-star, war-themed drama, The Victors (1963), the Hitchcock-like thriller, The Prize (1963), for which she won a "Best Newcomer" Golden Globe Award, and, especially, A Shot in the Dark (1964), the classic bumbling comedy where she proved a shady and sexy foil to Peter Sellers' Inspector Clousseau. She grew in celebrity, which was certainly helped after showing off her physical assets, posing for spreads in Playboy Magazine. In the meantime, she was appearing opposite the hunkiest of Hollywood actors including Paul Newman, James Garner, Glenn Ford and Stephen Boyd.
Always a diverting attraction in spy intrigue or breezy comedy, she was too often misused and setbacks began to occur when the quality of her films began to deteriorate. The tacky Hollywood entry, The Oscar (1966), the Bob Hope misfire, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966), the tired Dean Martin "Matt Helm" spy spoof, The Wrecking Crew (1968), and her title role in the tasteless Cold War comedy, The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968), starring Hogan's Heroes (1965) alumnus, Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer and Leon Askin, proved her undoing.
The multilingual actress, whose career took her to scores of different countries over time and benefited from speaking seven languages fluently, resorted to a number of low-budget features in Europe, including two Italian horror movies directed by Mario Bava that have now gone on to become cult classics: Baron Blood (1972) and The Exorcist (1973) rip-off, Lisa and the Devil (1973). The latter movie actually was a guilty pleasure. "Lisa" was re-released in 1975 as "The House of Exorcism" and added more footage of a demonic Elke, Linda Blair style, spewing frogs, insects, green pea soup and a slew of cuss words! In England, she good-naturedly appeared in the "comedy" films, Percy (1971), and its equally cheeky sequel, It's Not the Size That Counts (1974), which starred Hywel Bennett (later Leigh Lawson) as the first man to have a penis transplant(!). She also showed up in one of the later "Carry On" farces, entitled Carry on Behind (1975).
Elke fared better on television, where she appeared in the television pilot, Probe (1972), opposite Hugh O'Brian, as well as the well-made 1980s miniseries, Inside the Third Reich (1982), Jenny's War (1985), Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) and Peter the Great (1986). In addition, she made a few TV guest appearances on such popular shows as "Fantasy Island," "The Love Boat" and "St. Elsewhere."
A delightful personality on the talk show circuit, the lovely Elke also made appearances as a cabaret singer and, in time, put out several albums. She found a creative outlet on stage too with such vehicles as "Irma la Douce", "Born Yesterday", "Cactus Flower", "Woman of the Year" and "Same Time, Next Year".
Dividing her time between here and in Germany in later years, she added her usual charm to films both here (Lily in Love (1984), Severed Ties (1992)), and in Germany (Himmelsheim (1988), Flashback (2000), Life Is Too Long (2010)).
The veteran actress has since focused more time on book writing and painting than she has on acting. Holding her first one-woman art show at the McKenzie Galleries in Beverly Hills in 1965, her artwork bears an exceptionally strong influence to Marc Chagall and she, at one point, hosted a mid-1980s PBS series ("Painting with Elke"), that centered on her artwork, which has now exhibited and sold for more than 40 years. Nevertheless, on occasion, she tackles an acting role, often in her native Germany. Divorced from writer and journalist Joe Hyams, whom she met when he interviewed her for a Hollywood article (he recently died in November 2008), she has been married since 1993 to hotelier Wolf Walther.- Actress
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A strikingly beautiful German lead actress, Barbara Sukowa broke into TV and films as the protégée of famed director Rainer Werner Fassbinder with his masterpiece mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and the moody film drama Lola (1981) in the title role. In the latter, Barbara won critical kudos portraying a cynical, manipulative singer/hooker who sets her sights on an unsuspecting town politician played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Following Fassbinder's sudden death in 1982, Barbara was gloriously displayed in a couple of stark, brilliant, politically-motivated films by director Margarethe von Trotta. In Marianne & Juliane (1981), Barbara won both the Venice Film Festival and German Film awards and as _Rosa Luxemburg (1986)_ , she copped the Cannes Film Festival award. A number of international productions, notably Lars von Trier's Europa (1991), brought Barbara to the attention of Hollywood. Although not well known here by name, this fascinating figure has added her exotic allure to a number of American films including The Sicilian (1987), M. Butterfly (1993), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Cradle Will Rock (1999) and the just-completed Romance & Cigarettes (2005), which was written and directed by John Turturro. Barbara started up a second career as a concert vocalist in recent years, performing works by such classical composers as Arnold Schönberg, among others.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Nora Tschirner was born on 12 June 1981 in East Berlin, East Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for Rabbit Without Ears (2007), Tatort (1970) and Kebab Connection (2004).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Marthe Keller was born on January 28, 1945 in Basel, Switzerland. She studied ballet as a child but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble.
Keller's earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (1966) (uncredited) and the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including Un cave (1972), La raison du plus fou (1973) and And Now My Love (1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman's girlfriend in Marathon Man (1976) and her performance as an Arab terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday (1977). Keller also acted with William Holden in Billy Wilder's romance drama Fedora (1978). She appeared alongside Al Pacino in the auto racing film Bobby Deerfield (1977). Her later films included Oci ciornie (1987), with Marcello Mastroianni.
Keller has appeared in Europe and America in plays, directed opera and as a speaker on classical music in the last twenty years. For example, in 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann's play "Judgment at Nuremberg" as Mrs. Bertholt (the role played by Marlene Dietrich in the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version). She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance.
In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of Joan of Arc in the oratorio "Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher of Arthur Honegger" on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken role in Igor Stravinsky's "Perséphone". She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital. The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama "Cassandre", after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994.
Keller's first production as an opera director was "Dialogues des Carmélites", for Opéra National du Rhin, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year. She has also directed "Lucia di Lammermoor" for the Washington National Opera and for the Los Angeles Opera. Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of "Don Giovanni". Keller has one son, Alexandre de Broca, from her relationship with director Philippe de Broca.Other