Top 100 German Actresses
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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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Greta Schröder was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu. In the fictionalized 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of Nosferatu, but in fact she was little known.
The peak of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances.
Greta Schröder died on 8 June 1980 at the age of 87.- Actress
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Born in 1895 in Magdeburg, Germany, Margarete Schön made her stage debut in 1912. She was a member of the Deutschen Theater in Hannover from 1915-18 and Berlin's Staatstheater from 1918-45. She had a few roles in silent films, notably as Kriemhild in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (1924), but with the coming of sound she went from starring roles to supporting parts as mothers and wives. After World War II she was under contract to the East German film company Defa, from 1948-50. She later worked on radio doing plays and narrating documentaries, as well as plays for children. She died in Berlin in 1985.- Maly Delschaft was born on 4 December 1898 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Last Laugh (1924), Emilia Galotti (1958) and Im weißen Rößl (1926). She died on 20 August 1995 in Berlin, Germany.
- Emilie Kurz was born on 17 July 1874. She was an actress, known for The Last Laugh (1924), Die Tochter des Mehemed (1919) and Der Kampf des Donald Westhof (1927). She died in 1934.
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The daughter of a railroad official, Camilla Horn was educated in Germany and Switzerland. She initially trained as a dressmaker and received her first job experience in a fashion salon in Erfurt. This was merely a stepping stone for a performing career which began with dance lessons in Berlin and subsequent acting studies under Lucie Höflich. The lithe, blond and strikingly beautiful Camilla soon appeared in cabaret revues staged by Rudolf Nelson. By 1926, she was employed as an extra at Ufa, where she was spotted by the director F.W. Murnau, who found in her the ideal representation of Gretchen for his seminal production of Faust (1926) . The role catapulted Camilla to instant stardom. Within a year, she was signed by United Artists in Hollywood, befriending Charles Chaplin and, more importantly, studio chairman Joseph M. Schenck. The friendship with Schenck may, or may not, have led to an affair -- depending on which story one is to believe -- but it did result in two high profile starring roles opposite John Barrymore in the torrid melodramas Tempest (1928) and Eternal Love (1929), both produced by Schenck. Neither film was a commercial success.
With the coming of sound, Camilla returned to Europe, briefly appearing on stage in London and Paris, before resuming her screen career in Germany. As the 1930's went on, she rarely turned down a role, playing anything from baronesses and fashion models, to vamps and 'fallen women'. The quality of her films was variable, but there were several noteworthy standouts, such as Hans in allen Gassen (1930) (opposite Hans Albers), The Last Waltz (1934) and Fahrendes Volk (1938) (as a circus artiste, again with Albers).
During this tumultuous decade, Camilla conducted a lengthy affair with the singer Louis Graveure, fifteen years her senior. This came to an end in 1938, when Graveure was suspected of espionage by the Gestapo and fled to England, via the Cote d'Azure. After her luxury villa in Berlin was ransacked in search for non-existent clues, Camilla's outspoken criticism of the Nazi regime reached a point where it got her into serious trouble. She saw out the first half of her career with a trio of long forgotten films made in Italy. Having failed in an attempt to flee to Switzerland, she kept a low profile and even tried her hand at farming. After the war, she had a stint as an interpreter for the occupying U.S. forces in Germany. Camilla made a successful return to the stage in a 1948 Frankfurt production of Jean Cocteau's "L'Aigle a Deux Tetes" (aka 'The Eagle Has Two Heads'). She spent the latter half of her acting career playing grand dames, matriarchs and worldly ladies with colourful backgrounds, in both films and on television. In 1974, she was awarded the 'Filmband in Gold' (also known as 'Lola') for lifetime achievement in the German film industry. In her 1985 autobiography, "Verliebt in die Liebe" ('In Love with Love'), she happily recounted her marriages and liaisons.- Born in Berlin, Germany. After her role in Metropolis (1927) she made a string of movies in which she almost always had the starring role, easily making the transition to sound films. Her last film was An Ideal Spouse (1935) which was released in 1935. She died on June 11th 1996 of heart failure in Ascona, Switzerland.
- Gertrud Pfiel was born in present day Croatia, the daughter of an engineer and inventor. A strikingly beautiful blonde with high cheekbones and expressive blue eyes, she grew up in Vienna where she was trained as a singer and dancer, embarking on a theatrical career by the age of fifteen. Until 1944, 'Gertraud' regularly performed at various theatres in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna. During a performance, she came to the attention of the director Fritz Lang, who became instantly enamored with her. Without an audition, Lang gave her a starring role as a defecting Russian spy in Spies (1928), the success of which led to further back-to-back leads in Woman in the Moon (1929) and Hochverrat (1929).
Lang eventually left his wife and long-time collaborator, the screenwriter Thea von Harbou, while Gerda Maurus went onto marry another prolific director, Robert A. Stemmle, who directed her in Daphne und der Diplomat (1937). During the sound era, Gerda was intermittently given further opportunities to shine, including opposite Hans Albers (Dope (1932)) and Paul Hörbiger (Prinzessin Sissy (1939)), but she seemed somehow unable to repeat the success of her earlier (silent) films. Her association, however tenuous, with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels tainted her career during the immediate post-war period. While her acting ban was eventually lifted, she rarely again graced the screen, but for several more years continued on as a stage actress in Munich and Düsseldorf. - Dutch actress Lien Deyers was discovered by the great German director Fritz Lang, who gave her a part in his film Spies (1928). After that she became a big star in Germany and appeared in many successful films in the 1930s. She married director Alfred Zeisler. When the Nazis came to power, she and her Jewish husband left Germany for England. There she couldn't find work in the film business, so she and her husband went to the US to try their luck.
In the US things went from bad to worse. Unable to find work in Hollywood, she was forced to take jobs outside the business. Her marriage to Zeisler eventually failed, and she took to the bottle to solve her problems. She soon became an alcoholic and had numerous run-ins with the law. She married and divorced a few times, but soon completely vanished from the public view. The last time she was heard from was in 1964, when she was in a Las Vegas (NV) jail. It is thought that she died shortly after that. - Actress
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Rosa Valetti was born Rosa Alice Vallentin, the daughter of industrialist Felix Vallentin and his wife, Bertha. Her brother was actor Hermann Vallentin, who emigrated to Mandatory Palestine. She first appeared on the Berlin stage and later also in Paris, Brussells and Vienna. During the First World War, she worked with Ludwig Roth, her first husband, at the Residenz-Theater in Berlin. She also worked as a director and acted in many theaters. A meeting with Kurt Tucholsky gave her an opportunity to work in cabaret, firstly in "Schall und Rauch." Valetti produced her own cabaret show "Café Grössenwahn" in 1920, then "Die Rampe" in 1922, and "Comedia Valetti" in 1923.
Valetti played in many cabarets around Europe and appeared in the premiere of "Die Dreigroschenoper" ("The Three Penny Opera"). In all, she appeared in more than 40 films, including in 1930 's "Der Blaue Engel" (The Blue Angel) with Marlene Dietrich. In 1933, she left Nazi Germany for Vienna and worked until 1935 at the Theater at der Josefstadt, also making guest appearances in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1934, she moved back to Berlin and then in 1936 to Palestine. She died the following year in Vienna. Her only child, her daughter Elisabeth, an actress known as Lisl Valetti, emigrated to the USA.- Actress
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Lotte Lenya was a Tony Award-winning and Academy award-nominated actress and singer. While best remembered in the U.S. for her supporting role as Rosa Klebb in the classic Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), she is celebrated in Germany for her ground-breaking performances in the plays of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and her recordings of songs from those works.
She was born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blaumauer on October 18, 1898, in Vienna, Austria (at that time Austro-Hungarian Empire), into a working class family. Young Lenya was fond of dancing. In 1914 she moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There she began using her stage name, Lotte Lenya. In Swizerland she studied classical dance, singing and acting and made her stage debut at the Schauspielhaus. In 1921 she moved to Berlin and blended in the city's cosmopolitan cultural milieu. In 1924 she met composer Kurt Weill, and they married in 1926. She performed in several productions of 'The Threepenny Opera', which became an important step in her acting career.
In 1933, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, Lotte Lenya escaped from the country. At the same time, being stressed by the circumstances of life, she divorced from Kurt Weil, to be reunited with him two years later. In 1935 both emigrated to the United States and remarried in 1937. After Kurt Weill's death, she dedicated her efforts to keeping Weill's music played in numerous productions worldwide. In 1957 she won a Tony award for her role as Jenny, performed in English, in a Broadway production of 'The Threepenny Opera'.
Lotte Lenya shot to international fame with her portrayal of Contessa Magda Terbilli-Gozales, Vivien Leigh's friend in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). The role brought Lenya an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She gained additional fame after she appeared as Rosa Klebb, former head of operations for SMERSH/KGB, and now a sadistic Spectre agent with poisonous knife in her shoe, in From Russia with Love (1963). She died of cancer on November 27, 1981, in New York. She is entombed with Kurt Weill in a mausoleum, in Mount Repose Cemetery, in Haverstraw, New York, USA.- An ardent supporter of the KPD, the German communist party, Neher left Germany shortly after the Nazi took over and emigrated to Prague, then to Moscow where she appeared on the stage as a cabaret artiste. In the spring of 1936, Anatol Becker, Neher's husband -also an ardent communist, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of "Terrorist Activities". He was accused of planning an assassination attempt on the person of Soviet leader, Josef Stalin. Following his incarceration, Carola Neher relentlessly searched for him, going from prison to prison trying to trace his whereabouts. This was a very perilous activity given that she was herself under surveillance by the Secret Police. In her secret file, recently found in the KGB archives, she was already branded as an "adventuress with anti-soviet sympathies", which at the time equated to a death sentence by the Moskow regime. She was finally arrested and sent to prison a few months later. She endured exceptionally harsh treatment there and tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. After several weeks of interrogation and torture, she was condemned to 10 years hard labour in a gulag as "Trotkyst spy and conspirator", whilst Becker was shot in front of a firing squad. Several of her long-time friends, amongst them Bertold Brecht tried to help her but to no avail. Neher was sent to Oryol, an internment camp for political dissidents where other prominent Trotkysts like Christian Rakovsky, Maria Spiridonova and Olga Kameneva were also imprisoned. Very few details are available about Carola Neher afterwards. As of March 1941, we know that she was still alive: A letter she sent to the orphanage, where her 7-year old son Georg had been sent, survived. In the letter she inquires about his health and whether he still remembered her. We also know that she was not one of the 160 prominent political prisoners shot in Oryol during the Stalin purges of September 1941. When the camp was occupied by the advancing German army in October 1941, all German citizens interned in Soviet gulags were handed over to the Gestapo. As a communist, Neher was then charged with High Treason and evacuated East. The convoy arrived in the town of Ilezk near Orienburg (present-day Kazakhstan) in June 1942, where she was interned in the local prison. Following an outbreak of typhus (the prison had no sanitary installations of any sort), the already weak 41-year old Carola Neher (prisoner number 59783) died there on 26th July 1942. Her body was buried in an unmarked mass grave. Her son George, became a music teacher and only found out about his parents' identity in 1975.
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Inge Landgut was born on 23 November 1922 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for M (1931), Emil and the Detectives (1931) and Hilfe, ich bin unsichtbar (1951). She was married to Werner Oelschlaeger. She died on 29 May 1986 in West Berlin, West Germany.- Actress
Ellen Widmann was born on 15 December 1894 in Biel, Switzerland. She was an actress, known for M (1931), Das Weyerhuus (1940) and Der letzte raum (1966). She was married to Adolf Manz and Herbert Kuchenbuch. She died on 22 October 1985 in Zurich, Switzerland.- Actress
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Magda Schneider was born on 17 May 1909 in Augsburg, Germany and a singer, stage and film actress. After her graduation at a monastery school, she studied stenography and office management at a business school, but also attended ballet lessons and art courses at the Augsburg School of Music. Six months later, she gave her stage debut as soubrette at the Gärtnerplatz- Theater in Munich and was discovered by Ernst Marischka, who offered her a role at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. After her film debut Boykott (1930), she was type casted as the simple girl, dreaming of a happy life in movies such as Zwei in einem Auto (1932) or Ein Mädel wirbelt durch die Welt (1934). In 1933, she got to know Wolf Albach-Retty, whom she married four years later. Their children Rosemarie (aka Romy Schneider) and Wolf-Dieter were born in 1938 and 1941, but they divorced in 1945. After World War II, she appeared on stage and screen again, but was better known as ambitious mother, who urged on the career of her daughter Romy. In the 1950s, she played her mother or aunt in several movies such as Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (1953) or Sissi (1955). In the last years of her life, she had to bear the death of her grandson David in 1981 and her daughter Romy in 1982. She died on 30 July 1996 in Berchtesgaden, 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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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.- Dita Parlo was born on 4 September 1906 in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany [now Szczecin, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for The Grand Illusion (1937), L'Atalante (1934) and Melody of the Heart (1929). She was married to Frank Guetal. She died on 12 December 1971 in Courbevoie, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
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Lucie Mannheim was born on 30 April 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for The 39 Steps (1935), Der Ball (1931) and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965). She was married to Marius Goring. She died on 18 July 1976 in Braunlage, Lower Saxony, Germany.- Nora Gregor was an operetta diva, stage and film actress. She made her debut in Graz, Austria, and from there went to the Volksbühne an das Raimund-Theater in Vienna. She also worked at the Reinhardt Bühne in Berlin. From 1930 to 1933 she lived in Hollywood and also in Berlin. She made her first silent movie in 1921 and her first talkie in 1930 (Olympia (1930)). In 1937 she worked at the Burgtheater in Vienna and emigrated to Switzerland, France and Chile, where she died in Vina del Mar.
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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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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.- 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.
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Mady Christians was born in Vienna, Austria. Destined to be in films in both Germany and the US, she started out as a stage actress but soon found new challenges in the world of cinema. Her first film was at the age of 24 when she appeared in Audrey (1916). She remained in German films for the next 17years before coming to the US and starring in The Only Girl (1933). Mady left the film industry in 1948 after finishing All My Sons (1948).
She died on October 28, 1951, in Norwalk, CT, from a cerebral hemorrhage.- Ingetraud Hinze is known for Germany Year Zero (1948).
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Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood, but it was cinema that fascinated her. By the time she was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress, and was a student of theater director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Her first role was a bit part in the German film Geld auf der Straße (1930) (aka "Money on the Street") in 1930. She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more German productions in 1931, but it would be her fifth film that catapulted her to worldwide fame. In 1932 she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy") and had made the gutsy move to appear nude. It's the story of a young girl who is married to a gentleman much older than she, but she winds up falling in love with a young soldier. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The scenes, very tame by today's standards, caused the film to be banned by the U.S. government at the time.
Hedy soon married Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer and a prominent Austrofascist. He attempted to buy up all the prints of "Ecstasy" he could lay his hands on (Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, had a copy but refused to sell it to Mandl), but to no avail (there are prints floating around the world today). The notoriety of the film brought Hollywood to her door. She was brought to the attention of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract (a notorious prude when it came to his studio's films, Mayer signed her against his better judgment, but the money he knew her notoriety would bring in to the studio overrode any moral concerns he may have had). However, he insisted she change her name and make good, wholesome films.
Hedy starred in a series of exotic adventure epics. She made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). In 1942, she played the plum role of Tondelayo in the classic White Cargo (1942). After World War II, her career began to decline, and MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), both of which would have cemented her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah opposite Victor Mature's Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah (1949). This proved to be Paramount Pictures' then most profitable movie to date, bringing in $12 million in rental from theaters. The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to ease her financial crunch. She made only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy retired to Florida. She died there, in the city of Casselberry, on January 19, 2000.- Actress
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The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. (For instance, she was tracked down by Interpol for running away from boarding school at 17 years old.) The stunning young woman found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-on parts in three quickie Italian pictures before coming to Hollywood in 1955 and getting nowhere professionally; a four-month fling with rising star James Dean brought her good publicity but not much else. That same year, still just 19, she met and had an affair with fading matinée idol John Derek, who left his wife Pati Behrs and two kids for Ursula even though she spoke almost no English at the time. In 1957 they eloped to Las Vegas, and the new bride put her acting aspirations on hold for a few years thereafter.
1962 saw the relatively unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing opposite Sean Connery in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, Dr. No (1962). Andress' role as bikini-clad Honey Ryder was somewhat brief, and her Swiss/German accent so thick that her entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking looks and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.
Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe, including The 10th Victim (1965), in which she wore a famously ballistic bra, and The Blue Max (1966), where she was aptly cast as the sultry, insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general. She was also featured in Casino Royale (1967), a satirical foray into the world of James Bond, and gave a sparkling performance in the T&A-filled crime caper Perfect Friday (1970). Roles as a prostitute kidnapped by outlaws in Red Sun (1971), a stewardess living on the edge in Loaded Guns (1975), and a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in The Sensuous Nurse (1975) all provided plenty of excuses to throw her clothes to the wind. In Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), she was notoriously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles. Then she took on the sophisticated role of Louise de la Valliere, slinky, conspiratorial mistress of King Louis XIV (Beau Bridges) in The Fifth Musketeer (1979).
As for her personal life, Andress separated from Derek in 1964 and got divorced two years later, after falling in love with French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Malaysian set of Up to His Ears (1965). (Ron Ely, John Richardson and Marcello Mastroianni kept her company during the interim.) The relationship with Belmondo hit a wall in 1972, and she was next attached to her leading man from Stateline Motel (1973), Italian heartthrob Fabio Testi. When that didn't work out, Andress jumped into the dating pool, sporadically involved with a host of Lotharios including (but by no means limited to) Dennis Hopper, Franco Nero, John DeLorean and Ryan O'Neal. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. Hamlin encouraged her to have the baby, and on May 19, 1980, the international sex symbol gave birth to a boy named Dimitri Hamlin amid much hoopla.
After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused on slight European productions, as she was raising Dimitri in Italy. This meant turning down a big-budget Mel Brooks film in lieu of Red Bells (1982) (starring old flame Nero). Occasional television stints on the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and critically lauded miniseries Peter the Great (1986) helped maintain her visibility as an actress. Dumped by Hamlin in 1983, she started seeing Fausto Fagone, a Sicilian student three decades her junior, in 1986. In 1991, she met a new man when things dwindled with Fagone -- karate master Jeff Speakman. Since the breakup of that relationship, her love life has gone undocumented. She last worked on a film in 2005. Apparently retired from acting, Ursula makes the rounds of charity events and pops up on foreign talk shows every now and then. She divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Virginia and Spain, and her properties in Rome and L.A.- 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.- Katharina Renn was born on 21 June 1902 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966), La dame de pique (1965) and Pouce (1971). She died on 15 October 1975 in Paris, France.
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Margarethe von Trotta was born in Berlin in 1942. In the 1960s she moved to Paris where she worked for film collectives, collaborating on scripts and co-directing short films. She also pursued an acclaimed acting career, starring in films by well known German directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Volker Schlöndorff. In 1971, von Trotta divorced her first husband Juergen Moeller (with whom she had a child) and married Schlöndorff. She co-wrote many of the scripts for his films, and in 1975 the two of them co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975). In 1977, von Trotta directed her first solo feature The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). With her third film, Marianne & Juliane (1981), von Trotta's position as New German Cinema's most prominent and successful female filmmaker was fully secured.
Her films feature strong female protagonists, and are usually set against an important political background. Themes in her work include the effect of the political on the personal, and vice versa, as well as the relationships between female characters, often sisters.- Actress
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Margit Carstensen was born on 29 February 1940 in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Possession (1981) and Martha (1974). She died on 1 June 2023 in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.- Actress
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Irm Hermann was born on 4 October 1942 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She was an actress and assistant director, known for Five Last Days (1982), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) and The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972). She was married to Dietmar Roberg. She died on 26 May 2020 in Berlin, Germany.- Actress
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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.- Actress
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Sylvia Kristel was born on September 28, 1952 in Utrecht, Netherlands. She first came to international attention in the early 1970s with Emmanuelle (1974) for director Just Jaeckin. Then two more sequels followed in which she also starred. Included in her credits are a long list of European films including the film Julia (1974), in which she played the lead. In 1979, she came to Hollywood, appearing in The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979) for producer Jennings Lang, who also featured her in the comedy film The Nude Bomb (1980). However, this was all a prelude to the most successful film in Kristel's career -- Private Lessons (1981) -- in which she played the housekeeper who initiates 15-year-old Eric Brown to the wonders of sex. The film grossed over $50,000,000 worldwide. The Dutch actress, who speaks four languages (Dutch, English, Italian and French), now made her home in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Sylvia Kristel died at age 60 of cancer in her sleep on October 18, 2012.- 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.- Lisa Kreuzer was born on 2 December 1945 in Hof, Bavaria, Germany. She is an actress, known for The American Friend (1977), Alice in the Cities (1974) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). She was previously married to Wim Wenders.
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Yella Rottländer was born in 1964. She is an actress and costume designer, known for Alice in the Cities (1974), Faraway, So Close! (1993) and The Scarlet Letter (1973).- Edda Köchl was born on 28 February 1942 in Vienna, Nazi Germany [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Alice in the Cities (1974), The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972) and Dark Spring (1970). She was married to Wim Wenders and Kasper König. She died on 12 September 2015 in Berlin, 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.
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Angela Winkler was born on 22 January 1944 in Templin, Brandenburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Suspiria (2018), The Tin Drum (1979) and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975).- 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
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Vera Tschechowa was an elegant beautiful green-eyed German film and television actress and director of Russian descent. Her grandfather was Oscar-nominated Russian-American actor Michael Chekhov who was the nephew of writer Anton Chekhov.
She was born Vera Wilhelmowna Rust on July 22, 1940, in Berlin. Her father was Dr. Wilhelm Rust, and her mother was actress and agent Ada Tschechowa. Vera was brought up in Germany by her Russian-German grandmother, a silent film actress Olga Tschechowa. Her early childhood was affected by the Second World War. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she spent much time with her grandfather, Michael Chekhov in California, and also traveled in the United States. She started education as an artist and stage designer, then studied acting at Munich Drama school. Eventually, she followed the footsteps of her mother and grandmother and became an actress.
In 1956, she made her film debut in 'Witwer mit funf Tochtern', a film by director Heinz Erhardt. In 1959, she made her stage debut at Berlin Theater, then worked on stage at Deutsche Schauspielhaus Hamburg, and also at Dusseldorfer Schauspielhaus and at Theater Basel. In 1962, she received German National Film Award for her work in 'Das Brot der Fruhen Jahre'.
Vera Tschechowa had a formidable film career as an actress as well as a director. She played over 30 roles in feature films, and made numerous appearances on television in several countries of Europe. In 1977, she received the Goldene Camera award for her role in the ZDF production 'Zeit der Emphindsamkeit'. She also appeared as herself in Chekov in My Life (1984 documentary) directed by her husband Vadim Glowna.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Tschechowa was known as a director of movie portraits, such as of Klaus Maria Brandauer (1994), Anthony Quinn (1997), and Robert Redford among her other works. In 2006, she presented her film-portrait about the Makhmalbaf family of filmmakers at the Munchner Filmfest. She spoke four languages: German, English, French, and Russian.
She died in 2024, aged 83.- Actress
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Versatile stage and screen actress best known for Werner Herzog films (Best Supporting winner at Cannes for "Woyzeck"). Possibly her most acclaimed starring role is as her mentor 'Rainer Werner Fassbinder' in "A Man Called EVA" (Fassbinder, who treated Eva Mattes kindly, was sometimes referred to by his initials RWF).
The daughter of a film composer father and actress mother, Mattes first gained attention in her teens, when she began her acting career: for Fassbinder (Jail Bait, Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Effi Briest), as a Vietnamese rape victim (Verhoven's O.K., based on the same tragedy as Casualties of War (1989)), and briefly stumbling into early 70s exploitation fare (Naked Massacre, based on the Richard Speck murders).
Mattes moved into leads in prestige and socially conscious films, including Herzog's "Stroszek" (as a German prostitute who flees to the U.S.), Fassbinder's "In A Year of 13 Moons" (as the daughter of a transsexual), Adlon's Céleste (1980) (the title role, as Proust's devoted aide), and Hauff's Mathias Kneissl (1971) (the German Robin Hood).
Her recent roles include the mother of the young go-between in Enemy at the Gates, and opposite Isaach De Bankole (the assassin in Casino Royale (2006)) in Otomo.
Recently she turned to singing (a CD of English-language standards, 2006) and doing children's films, as well as stage dramas and musicals. As of 2008, she's starring in the world's longest-running detective series, Tatort.
In addition to her artist daughter Hanna (with director Werner Herzog), Mattes also has a son Josef, a busy young actor.- 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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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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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.- 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.- Christine Buchegger was born on 19 November 1942 in Vienna, Austria. She was an actress, known for From the Life of the Marionettes (1980), Claus Graf Stauffenberg (1970) and The Salzburg Connection (1972). She was married to Christian Kohlund. She died on 3 March 2014 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
- Rita Russek was born on 27 June 1952 in Eschwege, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tatort (1970), Wilsberg (1995) and Alfred (1995).
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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
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Statuesque 5'7" blonde beauty Sybil Danning reigns supreme as one of the sexiest, most dynamic, and commanding actresses to achieve cult B-movie queen status. Born in Austria as daughter of US Army major and Austrian mother she grew up on army bases in New Jersey, Maryland and Sacramento, CA.. Sybil started as a model then film debut as the beautiful tragic Lorelei, German legend who threw herself into the Rhine River in despair over a faithless lover then transformed into a siren who lured fishermen to destruction. As Nibelungen princess Kriemhild, she turns she-devil revenges death of her love Siegfried by her brutal Burgundian King brothers. Sybil studied 3 years with noted German drama coach Anne-Marie Hanschke, multiple mainstream European and American movies followed. When offered lead in prestigious Francis Durbridge play for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; she chose Hollywood instead. Sybil's (Raid on Entebbe) Oscar nominated Best Foreign Film OPERATION THUNDER BOLT, aka MIVTSA JONATAN with Klaus kinski was her calling card. It was her impressive performance as vivacious Valkyrie warrior "St Exmin" for which she won multiple awards, science-fiction cult movie BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS that introduced Sybil to young and old worldwide. A studio contracted Sybil to produce an action figure based on St Exmin with street date April 2021. Male & female fans love her rare beauty, sexiness, & toughness as tough prison inmate, formidable swanky swordfighter, wicked werewolf queen, cunning femme fatale English professor, Queen of the Moon, wicked warden, alien queen, loyal LAPD officer, brave bounty hunter, etc. Sybil has 2 comics, RUGER(TM) currently in discussion for an action TV series. Away for a while due to personal reasons, Tarantino and Rob Zombie brought her back in GRINDHOUSE as Nazi Villain and HALLOWEEN as nasty nurse! Sybil's back in action!- Actress
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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.- Lara Wendel was born on 29 March 1965 in Munich, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tenebrae (1982), Ghosthouse (1988) and La piovra (1984).
- Maruschka Detmers was born in the Netherlands in 1962, but moved to France when she was a teenager to work as an au-pair.
During her time in France, she came to the notice of French avant-garde director Jean-Luc Godard and was signed to played the female lead in First Name: Carmen (1983), also appearing in Devil in the Flesh (1986). Other films include Hanna's War (1988) and The Mambo Kings (1992).
She is now living and acting in France, and has a daughter, who is also an aspiring actress. - Liz Snoyink was born on 19 November 1955 in Goirle, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands. She is an actress, known for Vrouwenvleugel (1993), Dossier Verhulst (1986) and Paul Chevrolet en de ultieme hallucinatie (1985).
- Renée Soutendijk was born on 21 May 1957 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She is an actress, known for Suspiria (2018), Eve of Destruction (1991) and Private Resistance (1985). She is married to Thed Lenssen. They have two children.
- Marita Breuer was born on 20 January 1953 in Düren, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She is an actress, known for Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany (1984), Heimat Fragments: The Women (2006) and The Princess and the Warrior (2000).
- Gertrud Bredel was born on 19 April 1920 in Germany. She was an actress, known for Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany (1984). She died on 6 April 1999 in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
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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.- Lilia Sofer was born on November 28, 1896, to Catholic Katharina Skala and Jewish Julius Sofer , in Vienna, Austria. Julius Sofer worked as a manufacturer's representative for the Waldes Kohinoor Company. Lilia had two sisters: Lisl (later known as renowned dance-therapy pioneer Elizabeth Polk); and Felicitas ("Lizi"--pronounced "Litzi"), an infant nurse. All three sisters adopted their mother's Gentile maiden name of "Skala" and emigrated to the United States.
Lilia Skala would become a star on two continents. In pre-World War II Austria she starred in famed Max Reinhardt's stage troupe, and in post-war America she would become a notable award-worthy matronly character star on Broadway and in films. Forced to flee her Nazi-occupied homeland with her Jewish husband, Louis Erich Pollak (who also adopted his mother-in-law's Gentile maiden name of "Skala") and two young sons in the late 1930s, Lilia and her family managed to escape (at different times) to England. In 1939, practically penniless, they emigrated to the USA, where she sought menial labor in New York's garment district. She quickly learned English and worked her way back to an acting career, this time as a sweet, delightful, thick-accented Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy nominee.
She broke through the Broadway barrier in 1941 with "Letters to Lucerne", followed by a featured role in the musical "Call Me Madam" with Ethel Merman. In the 1950s, she did an extensive tour in "The Diary of Anne Frank" as Mrs. Frank, and performed in a German-language production of Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera". Lilia became a familiar benevolent face on TV in several early soap operas, including Claudia: The Story of a Marriage (1952).
She won her widest claim to fame, however, as the elderly chapel-building Mother Superior opposite Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field (1963), for which she won both Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. That led to more character actress work in films, most notably as the dog-carrying Jewish lady in the star-studded Ship of Fools (1965) and as Jennifer Beals's elderly friend in Flashdance (1983). On TV she played Eva Gabor's Hungarian mother in Green Acres (1965) and earned an Emmy nomination for her work in the popular miniseries Eleanor and Franklin (1976)).
She continued filming into her 90th year. Her final film work, occurring in the 1980's, went on to include a touching role as Hanna Long in the hit musical Flashdance (1983), plus parts in Testament (1983), House of Games (1987) and Men of Respect (1990). A few years later, on December 18, 1994, Lilia died of natural causes in Bay Shore (Long Island), New York, a few weeks after her 98th birthday. - Birgit Doll born in Vienna, Austria, was an actress and a theatre director. After graduating from high school in 1974, Birgit Doll began studying German literature and theatre. She switched to the Max Reinhardt seminar where she completed her acting training. She made her film debut in Christopher Hampton's "Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald" (1979) directed by Maximilian Schell. Through her 35 years of theatre and in film she worked with recognized directors as Ingmar Bergman, Michael Haneke, Peter Patzak and Otto Schenk. She was engaged by many of the great German speaking theatres in Europe. Birgit Doll appeared in 40 feature films and television productions. In the autumn of 2015 she suffered a stroke and died on October 26th.
- Lena Stolze was born on 8 August 1956 in Berlin, Germany. She is an actress, known for The Nasty Girl (1990), The White Rose (1982) and Five Last Days (1982). She is married to Michael Eberth. They have three children.
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From 1979 to 1984 Johanna ter Steege studied at the academy of dramatic art in Kampen to become a drama teacher. Her initial desire to develop theatre for and with children prompted her to seek a career as an actress and a teacher. From 1984 to 1988 she attended the school of acting at Arnhem to become a stage actress. Considering acting "the language of the heart", one of the most important things she learned was that the personnel and creative development of an actor are closely knit. Her acting experience ranges from Shakespeare, Sophocles, Strindberg and Chekhov to improvisory clown acts.
At the academy, collaboration with fellow students resulted in the very successful theatre group "De Trust", directed by Boermans. In 1987 Johanna was asked for a role in the film The Vanishing (1988) (A.K.A. "The Vanishing"), directed by George Sluizer. This role met international acclaim, winning her the "Felix Award" (Best Supporting Actress) in Berlin.
Inevitably, her career shifted from the theatre to the cinema. For the past twelve years she has traveled all over the world, acting in different languages and working with renowned directors, such as Robert Altman (Vincent & Theo (1990)), István Szabó (Dear Emma, Sweet Böbe (1992), A.K.A. "Sweet Emma, Dear Bobe"), Heddy Honigmann (Goodbye (1995) A.K.A. "Goodbye", for which she won Best Actress at the Locarno International Film Festival) and Bruce Beresford (Paradise Road (1997)).
Johanna has also worked with actors such as Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Isabella Rossellini, Tim Roth and Klaus Maria Brandauer. In January 2001 ter Steege played Countess Geschwitz, in the play "Lulu", directed by Jonathan Kent, both in the Almeida theatre in London and in Washington.- Ingrid Stassner is known for Benny's Video (1992).
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Anne Bennent was born on 13 October 1963 in Lausanne, Switzerland. She is an actress, known for Lulu (1980), The Wild Duck (1976) and Princesse Marie (2004).- Actress
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Willeke van Ammelrooy was born on 5 April 1944 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She is an actress and director, known for The Lake House (2006), Antonia's Line (1995) and 't Schaep Met De 5 Pooten (1969). She has been married to Marco Bakker since 20 November 1989.- 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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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.- Nina Petri was born on 16 July 1963 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Run Lola Run (1998), Deadly Maria (1993) and Am I Beautiful? (1998). She was previously married to Marcos Romão.
- Regula Grauwiller was born on 10 December 1970 in Liestal BL, Switzerland. She is an actress, known for Cargo (2009), Die Schweizer (2013) and Cascadeur (1998). She is married to Jophi Ries. They have three children.
- Maria Hofstätter was born on 30 March 1964 in Linz, Austria. She is an actress, known for Paradise: Faith (2012), Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) and Fox in a Hole (2020).
- Katrin Sass was born on 23 October 1956 in Schwerin, German Democratic Republic. She is an actress, known for Good Bye Lenin! (2003), The Weissensee Saga (2010) and Bürgschaft für ein Jahr (1981). She was previously married to Siegfried Kühn.
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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).- 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). - 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. - Petra Morzé was born on 10 October 1964 in Klagenfurt, Austria. She is an actress, known for Antares (2004), America 3000 (1986) and Polly Adler (2008).
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Juliane Köhler was born on 6 August 1965 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. She is an actress, known for Downfall (2004), Aimee & Jaguar (1999) and Nowhere in Africa (2001). She has been married to Michael Rösch since 1996. They have two children.- Birgit Minichmayr was born on 3 April 1977 in Linz, Upper Austria, Austria. She is an actress, known for Downfall (2004), The White Ribbon (2009) and Everyone Else (2009).
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Lucia Rijker was born on 7 December 1967 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She is an actress and producer, known for Million Dollar Baby (2004), Star Trek (2009) and Rollerball (2002).- Zarah Jane McKenzie was born on 9 April 1981. She is an actress, known for Head-On (2004), Soul Kitchen (2009) and Tatort (1970).
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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
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One of Europe's most celebrated actresses, Carice van Houten is perhaps best known as 'Melisandre' in the iconic TV show Game of Thrones, a performance for which she has been recognized with an Emmy Award nomination in 2019. Other projects include Paul Verhoeven's award-winning Black Book and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie opposite Tom Cruise and as Melisandre on Game of Thrones. Recent projects include Instinct and Temple, a TV show for Sky opposite Mark Strong, which has been picked up for a second season.
Her Dutch-language feature Love Life, gained her further critical acclaim and broke box office records in her native Holland. Her next film Happy Housewive won her a record breaking 5th Golden Calf at The Netherlands Film Festival and was voted 'Best Dutch Actress of All Time' by the Dutch audience. Other awards include Best Actress for Black Butterflies at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Best Performance award for Instinct at the Les Arcs Film Festival 2019.
Her credits include Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders and Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, the Jesse Owens biopic, Race, with Jason Sudekis and Jeremy Irons and voiced a character in The Simpsons. She can also be seen in Brian de Palma's Domino and in Brimstone, opposite Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce and Kit Harrington, and The Glass Room, with Claes Bang. She played a leading role in Halina Reijn's directorial feature debut Instinct, opposite Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin), which won the Variety Piazza Grande Award in Locarno Film Festival 2019. Instinct is the first outing for the Carice and Halina's production banner, Man Up.
Up next is the new Dutch series Red Light, in which she not only plays the lead role but she is also creative producer of the show, together with Halina and their production company Man Up The show is expected to air in Autumn 2020.- Actress
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Natalia Avelon was born on 29 March 1980 in Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Eight Miles High (2007), Gegengerade (2011) and Far Cry (2008).- Patrycia Ziolkowska was born on 19 April 1979 in Sokolów Podlaski, Mazowieckie, Poland. She is an actress, known for The Edge of Heaven (2007), Tatort (1970) and Welcome to the Club (2014).
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Famke Janssen was born November 5, 1964, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and has two other siblings. Moving to America in the 1980s, she modeled for Chanel in New York. Later, taking a break from modeling, she attended Columbia University, majoring in literature.
This model-turned-actress broke into Hollywood in the early 1990s. Her first film was Fathers & Sons (1992). Later she became James Bond's enemy in GoldenEye (1995). Her career has bloomed since then with her starring in such films as House on Haunted Hill (1999), Hide and Seek (2005), a recurring role on FX's Nip/Tuck (2003), and the blockbuster movies X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).- Actress
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Johanna Wokalek was born on 3 March 1975 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany. She is an actress, known for The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), Pope Joan (2009) and Barefoot (2005). She is married to Thomas Hengelbrock. They have one child.- Leonie Benesch was born on 22 April 1991 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress, known for The White Ribbon (2009), The Teachers' Lounge (2023) and Babylon Berlin (2017).
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Veerle Baetens studied Musical Theatre at the "Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts" in Brussels. After this she had roles in theatre and then started her TV career for VTM.
In 2005 she won the "John Kraaijkamp Musical Award" for her role in the theatre version of Pippi Longstocking. And in 2008 she won awards for her performance of "Sara" (the Flemish version of the TV show Ugly Betty). After this TV show ended she starred in the movie Loft. Then another big role came as Hannah Maes in the TV show "Code 37" where she played the tough police chief. This show lasted for 3 seasons.
In 2012 she started her own band together with friend Sandrine called "Dallas" and the album "Take it All" came out in 2012. Another album that Veerle was part of was the movie soundtrack of "The Broken Circle Breakdown" where she played the role of Elise, a woman who loses her daughter.
She and her boyfriend Geert have a daughter (2008) and live in Belgium.- Actress
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Saskia Rosendahl was born on 9 July 1993 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. She is an actress, known for Lore (2012), The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) and Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2021).- Actress
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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.- Actress
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Lea van Acken was born on 20 February 1999 in Germany. She is an actress, known for The Diary of Anne Frank (2016), Dark (2017) and The Island (2020).- Actress
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Nina Kunzendorf was born on 10 November 1971 in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Phoenix (2014), Tatort (1970) and Unspoken (2010).- 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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Vicky Krieps is a Luxembourgish actress, known for the films Phantom Thread (2017) and Old (2021).
She also had minor roles in Hanna (2011), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and Colonia (2015). Her film debut was House of Boys (2009).
Krieps is the granddaughter of Luxembourgish politician and war-time member of the Luxembourgish Resistance, Robert Krieps.- Actress
- Producer
Maria Simon was born on 6 February 1976 in Leipzig, German Democratic Republic [nox Saxony, Germany]. She is an actress and producer, known for Good Bye Lenin! (2003), Portrait of a Married Couple (2002) and Kleine Schwester (2004). She was previously married to Bernd Michael Lade.- Actress
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Valerie Pachner was born on 26 June 1987 in Wels, Austria. She is an actress, known for A Hidden Life (2019), The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) and The King's Man (2021).- Actress
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Paula Beer was born on 23 February 1995 in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. She is an actress, known for Undine (2020), Frantz (2016) and The Dark Valley (2014).- Melika Foroutan was born in 1976 in Teheran, Iran. She is an actress, known for The Empress (2022), Tribes of Europa (2021) and Pari (2020).An Iranian-German Actress
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Sandra Hüller was born in Suhl. She studied acting at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. For her performance of Anneliese Michel in Hans-Christian Schmid's drama Requiem she won The Silver Bear for Best Actress. She is internationally known for her starring role in Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann, for which she won among others the European Film Award and the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress.