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- Actor
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Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German actor with a relatively long film career. He was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as an abusive father in the biographical drama "Shine" (1996).
In 1930, Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia. The town developed around the castle of Schalauer Haus, which had been founded by the Teutonic Knights. Tilsit was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945, and renamed to Sovetsk. It is currently part of the Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave of Russia located in Central Europe. The town is located close to the Oblast's borders with Lithuania, and has long had an ethnic Lithuanian minority.
Mueller-Stahl's father was bank teller Alfred Müller (who later changed the family name to Mueller-Stahl) ,and his mother was university professor Editha Maaß. Editha was born to a Baltic German family from Estonia. During World War I, the Maaß lived in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg). They moved to Tilsit in 1918.
Mueller-Stahl was born in Germany's Weimar Republic period, and spend his childhood and early adolescence in Nazi Germany. In 1938, he moved with his family to the town of Prenzlau in Brandenburg. During World War II, Mueller-Stahl parted with his father. Alfred was drafted into military service, and later fought on the Eastern Front of World War II. In 1945, Alfred died in a military hospital in Schönberg , Mecklenburg.
In 1945, Editha briefly moved her family to Goorstorf, located near Rostock, the largest city of Mecklenburg. They returned to Prenzlau following the end of World War II. Armin continued his school education there. He graduated from school in 1948, at the age of 18.
Mueller-Stahl initially aspired to become a professional violinist. In 1948, he moved to Berlin. There he attended the city conservatory in West Berlin, where he studied violin playing and musicology. He graduated in 1949, and acquired qualifications to work as a music teacher. At this point, he decided to become an actor instead.
After a few years of studies, Mueller-Stahl made his professional debut at the "Theater am Schiffbauerdamm" of Berlin in 1952. In 1954, he started performing in the Volksbühne ("People's Theatre") , a prestigious theater in East Berlin. For the next 20 years, he was primarily a theatrical actor. During the 1960s, he started a side career as a character actor in East German films. By the 1970s, he repeatedly appeared in polls as East Germany's most popular actor.
From 1973 to 1976, Mueller-Stahl played the Stasi agent Werner Bredebusch in the spy thriller television series "The Invisible Visor" (1973-1979). Bredebusch was initially the series' main character, a Stasi agent who impersonates deceased fighter pilot Achim Detjen and infiltrates West Germany. The series achieved high ratings, and Mueller-Stahll received acclaim. He left the series in 1976, and its ratings soon declined.
In 1976, Mueller-Stahl signed an open letter, protesting against East Germany's decision to exile singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann (1936-). Consequenly, Mueller-Stahl found himself blacklisted in East Germany. After a few years of being unable to find roles in his country, Mueller-Stahl migrated to West Germany.
In 1981, Mueller-Stahl played Von Bohm, the male lead in the romantic drama "Lola" (1981). The film depicted Von Bohm as a building commissioner who struggles against widespread corruption in the town of Coburg, while falling in love with brothel-employed singer Lola (played by Barbara Sukowa). Following the film's relative success, Mueller-Stahl found steady work in West German cinema throughout the 1980s.
Although he barely spoke English at this point of his life, Mueller-Stahl was cast as General Petya Samanov in the American television miniseries Amerika. The dystopian series depicted a version of the United States which was under Soviet military occupation, and in which Soviet general Samanov is the de facto ruler of the occupied country. "Amerika" was the second-highest rated miniseries of the 1986-87 U.S. television season.
Mueller-Stahl decided to to seek more acting roles in the United States, and made his American film debut in the crime drama "Music Box" (1989). He was cast in the role of Mike Laszlo, a Hungarian-American family man, who is exposed as a wanted war criminal who killed numerous civilians during the Siege of Budapest (1944-1945). The film won the "Golden Bear" at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.
Mueller-Stahl next received the primary role of Polish-Jewish immigrant Sam Krichinsky in the family drama "Avalon" (1990). The film concerned the gradual assimilation of Krichinsky's family into modern American culture. The film was critically praised, and its screenwriter won the "Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay".
In 1991, Mueller-Stahl played the role of Inspector Grubach in the mystery thriller "Kafka". The film depicted a conspiracy in 1910s Prague, and was loosely inspired by the works of Franz Kafka (1883-1924). The film under-performed at the box office, but gained a cult following.
During the same year, Mueller-Stahl played New York City-based taxi driver Helmut Grokenberger in the anthology film "Night on Earth". In the film, Helmut is an East German immigrant in the United States. He is a former professional clown, whose ineptness as a driver and ignorance of New York geography make him ill-suited for his new profession. The film was critically well-received.
In 1992, Mueller-Stahl played Meissen porcelain collector Baron Kaspar Joachim von Utz in the eponymous film "Utz". The film was an adaptation of a 1988 novel by Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989), concerning a passionate collector and his unwillingness to part with his collection, even at the offer of a better life abroad. For this role, Mueller-Stahl won the "Silver Bear for Best Actor" at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1996, Mueller-Stahl played Peter, the abusive father of concert pianist David Helfgott (1947-). The film concerns the negative effects of long-term physical and mental abuse of David by his father. Mueller-Stahl's role was critically praised, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The award was instead won by rival actor Cuba Gooding Jr. (1968-).
In 1998, Mueller-Stahl played German scientist Conrad Strughold in the science fiction film "The X-Files", a spin-off of the then-popular television series "The X-Files" (1993-2002, 2016-2018). In the film, Strughold is a member of the Syndicate, a shadow government which collaborates with extraterrestrial would-be colonists. The film was a box-office hit, earning 189 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2007, Mueller-Stahl played Semyon, a high-ranking member of the Russian mafia, in the gangster film "Eastern Promises". The film was critically praised, and appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.Mueller-Stahl won the "Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role".
In 2009, Mueller-Stah played former Stasi colonel Wilhelm Wexler in the action thriller "The International". In the film, Wexler works with a merchant bank that has secret ties to drug cartels, powerful corporations, corrupt governments, and terrorist organizations,. The film earned about 60 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and was considered notable for drawing inspiration from real-world banking scandals of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Also in 2009, Mueller-Stahl portrayed Cardinal Strauss, Dean of the College of Cardinals and the Papal Conclave, in the mystery thriller "Angels & Demons". The film was an adaptation of a 2000 novel by Dan Brown (1964-). It concerns the assassination of fictional Pope Pius XVI, and a conspiracy trying to influence the election of his successor. The film earned about 486 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the highest-grossing film in Mueller-Stah's career.
In 2011, Mueller-Stahl received the "Honorary Golden Bear" at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. His only film role in the 2010s was playing Fr. Zeitlinger in the experimental film "Knight of Cups ". The film uses images from tarot cards as a main theme, while elements of the plot were inspired by the "Hymn of the Pearl" (2nd century) and the "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678) by John Bunyan.
By 2021, Mueller-Stahl was 90-years-old. He lives in semi-retirement in California, where he enjoys its pleasant climate. He has written a number of novels and short stories, and has taken painting as a hobby.- Actress
- Writer
Her father was a Prussian count (Count von Lehndorff-Steinort) who was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and hanged that year, when Vera was three. Her mother was arrested, and Vera and her sisters spent the rest of the war in Gestapo camps. They were reunited with their mother after the war, but the family was destitute, and ostracised by other Germans for their father's treachery. She ended up studying textile design in Florence, where a fashion designer first asked her to model. She had first travelled to New York in 1961 as plain old Vera, but failed to secure a single booking. After retreating to Milan for a spell, she returned to take Manhattan under her new name.... Veruschka!- Sabine Bethmann almost became an international star. She was slated by Kirk Douglas to co-star as Varinia in his epic blockbuster Spartacus (1960). However, when director Anthony Mann was unceremoniously replaced with Stanley Kubrick, it was Jean Simmons who was preferred for the part. Sabine's career never quite recovered from this setback.
Bethmann was born and spent her childhood in Tilsit, East Prussia. After schooling, she qualified as a physiotherapist and earned extra money on the side as a photographic model. At age 24, the attractive blonde was discovered for the screen and made her debut as star of the romantic drama Waldwinter (1956), directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner. Her girl-next-door appeal gained her almost instant popularity. As a result, Bethmann was given leads or second leads in a string of major cinematic releases: the U-Boat drama Haie und kleine Fische (1957) (as a commodore's wife), Fritz Lang's lavish remakes of The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) and The Indian Tomb (1959) (an architect's wife) and the medical drama Frauenarzt Dr. Sibelius (1962) (as an obstetric nurse). Bethmann typically played altruistic wives or lovers whose self-sacrifice would be rewarded at the end of the day.
By the mid 60s, the more unambitious roles which had hitherto been her bread and butter (namely the rustic Heimatfilm romances and the 'Pauker' school farces) had greatly diminished in popularity. With fewer movie offers forthcoming, Bethmann turned to television. Her final starring fling was as secretary to a private eye in Cliff Dexter (1966), a popular but short-lived James Bond pastiche. By the 1970s, her screen appearances became more and more sporadic. By the time she was in her sixtieth year, Sabine Bethmann had retired from acting. She lived the rest of her life in Berlin in relative obscurity until her death in November 2021. - She was born Maria Erika Knab in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in Eastern Prussia. As routes to Hollywood go, hers was both dramatic and circuitous. Erika's parents were killed near the end of World War II by Red Army soldiers. The ten-year old orphan may have been one of the tens of thousands of civilians who were lucky enough to be evacuated in 1945. Little is known about the next decade of her life, but, in 1955, Erika turned up in West Berlin. There, she acted (as Erika Knab) in a few motion pictures, even had a leading role in Das Sandmännchen (1955), a fairy tale for children loosely based on Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost. She also signed a contract with the short-lived Berolina production company and went on to dub the voice of Mickey Mouse for German viewers. Sometime during this period, she became Erika Peters after marrying an American citizen.
In 1957, Erika arrived in the U.S., initially making ends meet by importing used Volkswagens (without, apparently, an agency license). Reinvesting her earnings from this enterprise, she then ran a coin-operated laundromat in Los Angeles. In 1959, Erika made her screen debut on American television. She was featured in several movies, including Elvis Presley's G.I. Blues (1960), Heroes Die Young (1960) (headlining, as the daughter of a Romanian partisan) and a couple of low budget horror films (Mr. Sardonicus (1961) and House of the Damned (1963)). In addition, she guest starred in a handful of popular TV shows. In one particular instance, she was picked to appear in an episode of Jack Webb's G.E. True (1962), because an actress with a German accent was required who also "could fit into a normal-sized suitcase" (this, for an episode about an escape from communist East Berlin entitled "The Suitcase Man").
In 1961, Erika obtained a divorce from her first husband. Three years later, she married the costume designer Sy Devore and permanently retired from acting. After Devore died less than two years later from a heart attack. Erika got married a third time in 1969 to Robert M. Brunson, president of Century Fast Foods in Los Angeles. She henceforth called herself Erika Devore Brunson. Perpetually resourceful, never letting grass grow under her feet, she subsequently reinvented herself as a successful interior designer and creator of antique reproduction furniture. She invested a great deal of her profits in animal welfare-related charities. Erika Brunson twice served as commissioner of the Department of Animal Services and as a long-standing board member of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
Erika Devore Brunson passed away in Los Angeles on May 17 2022 at the age of 86. - Actor
- Additional Crew
Curt Lowens was born on 17 November 1925 in Allenstein, East Prussia, Germany [now Olsztyn, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Angels & Demons (2009), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and Flightplan (2005). He was married to Katherine Guilford. He died on 8 May 2017 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
With his lanky frame, big nose, toothbrush moustache and horn-rimmed glasses he looked like someone had decided to cross Groucho Marx with Albert Einstein. The perennial scene-stealer Felix Bressart had two distinct careers as a comic actor: an earlier one, on stage and screen in his native Germany, and a later -- even more prosperous one -- in Hollywood. Trained under Maria Moissi in Berlin, Felix began acting professionally after World War I. He honed his skills in the genres of political parody, musical comedy and slapstick farce in the theatres of Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna (with Max Reinhardt). By 1933, he had established his film acting credentials in popular mainstream movies like Three from the Filling Station (1930) and Die Privatsekretärin (1931). Like so many other distinguished actors he was forced to leave the German realm after the Nazis took power in 1933. Felix moved via Switzerland and France to a new domicile in the United States where his connections to fellow émigrés like Joe Pasternak and Ernst Lubitsch guaranteed him rapid and steady employment.
In Hollywood, Felix joined the regular company of stock players at MGM. He was immediately typecast, his stock-in-trade being disheveled academics, wistful European philosophers, scientists and music professors of diverse ethnicity. His first major screen success was as one of the Russian commissars in Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939), a delightful performance which spawned as similar part being created for him in Comrade X (1940). The role which ultimately defined his career, in equal parts comedy and pathos, was in the classic wartime satire To Be or Not to Be (1942), as Greenberg, a Jewish member of an acting troupe with Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. It seemed, that Felix was still underemployed in films, since he managed to practise as a doctor of medicine on the side. Sadly, he died of leukemia in 1949 at the untimely age of 57.- Marion Michael was born as Marion Ilonka Michaela Delonge in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1940. Her father was a doctor. The last months of the war she spent together with her mother and her four-year older brother on Hiddensee, a small island in the Baltic Sea. After the war, the family moved to Berlin where Marion attended a secondary school. As a ten-year-old, she made her stage debut in little theatre and was taught classical dance in the ballet school of Tatjana Gsovsky. When she was only 15, she was selected out of allegedly 12,000 entries for the lead in Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald/Liane, Jungle Goddess (Eduard von Borsody, 1956). This adventure film was largely shot on location in Africa.
The story is about a girl who is discovered in the African jungle by an expedition group which includes Hardy Krüger. A tribe adores her as a goddess. It turns out that she is Liane, the long lost granddaughter of a rich shipowner in Hamburg. Her dark hair was dyed blonde and she was promoted as the 'German Brigitte Bardot'. Michael appeared topless during the first half of the film and this was part of the success of the film. However, she was acceptable for family audiences as the nature child with no obvious erotic suggestiveness.
The film was a huge box office hit, and producer Gero Wecker offered her a seven-year-contract. The press loved her, she was constantly photographed, and at the age of 18 she already owned a sports car. Unfortunately this success of her debut film would not be matched by any of her later films.
Marion Michael played next in the comedy Der tolle Bomberg/The Mad Bomberg (Rolf Thiele, 1957) opposite Hans Albers, an adaptation of the 1923 novel of the same title by Josef Winckler based on a real historical Westphalian aristocrat of the nineteenth century.
Then followed the sequel Liane, die weiße Sklavin/Jungle Girl and the Slaver (Hermann Leitner, 1957), this time opposite Adrian Hoven. Set in North Africa, this story concerns Arab slave traders who abduct Liane and members of her tribe. Later, the two Liane films were edited together and re-marketed as Liane - die Tochter des Dschungels/Liane - The Daughter of the Jungle.
In order to break away from the Liane image, Marion took dance and acting lessons and then appeared opposite Christian Wolff in Es war die erste Liebe/First Love (Fritz Stapenhorst, 1958) in which a Catholic theology student falls in love with a country girl. Tragedy came about when, during the shooting of the crime film Bomben auf Monte Carlo/Bombs on Monte Carlo (Georg Jacoby, 1960) with Eddie Constantine, she had a car accident that left her face temporarily scarred. However, she recovered and returned to acting in Schlußakkord/Festival (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1960), the Schlagerfilm Davon träumen alle Mädchen/That's What All The Girls Dream About (Thomas Engel, 1961), and Jack und Jenny/Jack and Jenny (Victor Vicas, 1963) with Senta Berger and Ivan Desny.
The following decade, Marion Michael mainly worked for love theatre and television. For six years she worked at the Städtischen Bühnen Köln and In 1970 gave birth to a son, Benjamin, allegedly fathered by an American director, with whom she lived in a commune and with whom she also did some street theatre. Afterwards, she suffered severe depression after a short marriage to actor Marcel Werner ended, and retired from acting in 1976. For a while she then worked as a saleswoman. In 1979 she took the unusual step of moving from West to East Germany, where she worked as a synchronisation assistant for TV.
She still occasionally acted in TV-films such as In Hassliebe Lola/In Hate Love Lola (Lothar Lambert, 1995) and Blond bis aufs Blut/Blonde Till Blood (Lothar Lambert, 1997), and in 1996 her life became the topic of a TV musical, Liane (Horst Königstein, 1996). She also played a small role in the production. The film was nominated for the Adolf Grimme award and the Prix Europa 1997.
In her later years, she still remained a well known German film icon and with her second husband, Freimut Patzner, lived in an old house in Oderbruch. In 2007 Marion Michael died of heart failure in a hospital in Gartz an der Oder. It was four days before her 67th birthday. - Director
- Cinematographer
- Producer
Russian-born Phil Rosen began his film career as a cameraman during the silent era, and worked his way into directing. Rosen was a highy regarded director in the silent era, as evidenced by the fact that when MGM fired Josef von Sternberg from Exquisite Sinner (1926)--for, among other things, his extravagance, slow shooting schedule and total disregard for the budget--the studio brought in Rosen to re-edit, re-shoot and generally tighten it up, and by most contemporary accounts he did a first-rate job. However, like all too many of his colleagues of the period, the success he enjoyed during the silent era didn't carry over into talking pictures, and Rosen spent most of the rest of his career churning out B-grade (and cheaper) fodder for outfits like Monogram, PRC, and the bottom-of-the-barrel states-rights market.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Königsberg in 1935, Renate Ewert and her family had to leave their home and relocate to Hamburg during WWII. As she was determined to become an actress, she applied for the "Hamburger Kammerspiele" but was rejected. By doing synchronising jobs for foreign movies she finally got her first role in the third part of 08/15 - In der Heimat (1955). After that one, she appeared in a number of movies as the seductive, mysterious girl but never got the dramatic parts she was eager to play.
She had affairs with some famous actors of the time but these didn't help her career. At the middle of the 60s she didn't get many offers anymore and turned to tablets and alcohol. At the 10th of December of 1966, she was found dead by a friend, actress Susanne Cramer, who wanted to visit her in her apartment: she had died three weeks previously, probably by starvation.
Her parents couldn't deal with Renate Ewert's untimely death: They poisoned themselves not long after their daughter died.- Alexander Allerson was born on 19 May 1930 in Osterode, East Prussia, Germany [now Ostróda, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He is an actor, known for Battle of Britain (1969), My Name Is Nobody (1973) and Chinese Roulette (1976).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Marianne Hold was born on 15 May 1929 in Johannisburg, East Prussia, Germany [now Pisz, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for Schwarzwälder Kirsch (1958), Mein Schatz ist aus Tirol (1958) and Die Lindenwirtin vom Donaustrand (1957). She was married to Frederick Stafford. She died on 11 September 1994 in Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland.- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Volker Lechtenbrink was born on 18 August 1944 in Cranz, East Prussia, Germany [now Zelenogradsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor and director, known for M.E.T.R.O. - Ein Team auf Leben und Tod (2006), Der Hausgeist (1991) and The Bridge (1959). He was married to Gül Ural-Aytekin, Jeannette Arndt, Anja Topf and Yvonne van Meerveld. He died on 22 November 2021 in Hamburg, Germany.- Antje Weisgerber was born on 17 May 1922 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She was an actress, known for The Country Doctor (1987), Die Nibelungen (1967) and Ein Schloß in Schweden (1967). She was married to Reinhard Schilling and Horst Caspar. She died on 29 September 2004 in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
- Music Department
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Kay was born on 12 April 1944 in Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany [now Sovetsk, Russia]. He is a producer, known for Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and The Limey (1999). He has been married to Jutta Maue since 24 February 1967. They have one child.- Actor
- Writer
Siegfried Wischnewski was born on 15 April 1922 in Saborowen, East Prussia, Germany [now Zaborowo, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He was an actor and writer, known for Tim Frazer (1963), Three Penny Opera (1963) and Die Nibelungen, Teil 1 - Siegfried (1966). He was married to Trude Suzanne Ritter. He died on 24 January 1989 in Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.- Traugott Buhre was born on 21 June 1929 in Insterburg, East Prussia, Germany [now Chernyakhovsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Anatomy (2000), Held Henry (1965) and Die Dreigroschenoper (1972). He was married to Brigitte Graf and ???. He died on 26 July 2009 in Dortmund, Germany.
- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Chris Doerk was born on 24 February 1942 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. She is an actress, known for Heißer Sommer (1968), Don't Cheat, Darling! (1973) and Coming Out (1989). She has been married to Klaus P. Schwarz since 1974. She was previously married to Frank Schöbel.- Wilfried Baasner was born on 28 May 1940 in Mohrungen, East Prussia, Germany [now Morag, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (1987), Die Wache (1994) and Klinik unter Palmen (1996). He died on 28 March 2006 in Athens, Greece.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Werner Abrolat was born on 15 August 1924 in Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany [now Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Königlich Bayerisches Amtsgericht (1969), Die aufrichtige Lügnerin (1968) and Liebe '47 (1949). He died on 24 August 1997 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Werner Richard Heymann was active as a classical composer in Berlin from 1912. By the end of the decade, he also wrote songs for cabaret and served as musical director for Max Reinhardt from 1918 to 1919. In films with Ufa from 1923, he initially worked as assistant to the head of the music department Erno Rapee, before replacing the latter in 1926. Heymann remained under contract until 1933 as musical director and composer, scoring several classic films for F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. He also established himself as among the foremost writers of songs for film operetta, creating hits for popular fare like Three from the Filling Station (1930) and Bombs Over Monte Carlo (1931).
Forced to flee from Nazi persecution because of his Jewish background, Heymann made his way to Hollywood via Paris and London. There, he was noted particularly for scoring two of Ernst Lubitsch's best films: Ninotchka (1939) and To Be or Not to Be (1942). Heymann returned to Germany in 1951 where he resumed writing film scores and songs for the theatre until his death in 1961.- Margie Schmitz was born in 1941 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She was married to Curd Jürgens and Klaus Hermann Schmitz. She died on 1 August 2003 in Zürich, Switzerland.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Gerhard Olschewski was born on 30 May 1942 in Herzogskirchen, East Prussia, Germany [now Gaski, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He is an actor, known for A Lost Life (1976), Eisenhans (1983) and Der Mörder (1979).- Actor
- Director
Dietrich Lehmann was born in 1940 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Ab heute heisst du Sarah (1989), Denkste!? (1972) and Tatort (1970).- Klaus Behrendt was born on 7 December 1920 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. He was an actor, known for Was ihr wollt (1954), Donadieu (1976) and Die grosse Chance (1957). He died on 11 October 2013 in Lubmin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
- Actress
- Producer
Ruth Weyher was born on 28 May 1901 in Neumark in Westpreußen, East Prussia, Germany [now Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. She was an actress and producer, known for This Ancient Law (1923), Ein Sommernachtstraum (1925) and Warning Shadows (1923). She died on 27 January 1983 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Max Nosseck was born on 19 September 1902 in Nakel, East Prussia, Germany [now Naklo nad Notecia, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland]. He was a director and actor, known for The Brighton Strangler (1945), The Body Beautiful (1953) and Kill or Be Killed (1950). He was married to Ilse Steppat, Genevieve Haugan and Olly Gebauer. He died on 29 September 1972 in Bad Wiessee, Bavaria, Germany.- Writer
- Additional Crew
While born in eastern Europe, he has lived in the US since 1936. He initially worked for his father, who was US representative of the Lithuanian government-in-exile. He began publishing science fiction in 1952 in the magazine "Astounding Science Fiction" (now "Analog").- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
The pioneering German collective Tangerine Dream has been delivering their distinctive style of ambient music for nearly three decades, laying down a foundation of sound textures and sonic imagery that has influenced many of today's electronic musicians. Founded in 1967 by fine art aficionado Edgar Froese the group released their first album, "Electronic Meditation" in 1970, and, through many different line-ups in proceeding years, delivered a unique brand of space-rock, making use of electronic instruments like synths and Mellotron, along traditional instruments like rock guitar and blues harmonica. Their work on William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977) was the beginning of many film projects that the group would undertake throughout the 1980s, including Thief (1981) and The Keep (1983), both directed by Michael Mann, Legend (1985) by Ridley Scott, Near Dark (1987) by Kathryn Bigelow and the box-office hit Risky Business (1983) with Tom Cruise. Throughout the 1990s, the group has been as active as ever, releasing as many as five albums a year, including remastered versions of early material.- Additional Crew
- Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Irene Mann was born on 12 April 1929 in Königsberg, East-Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She was an actress and assistant director, known for The Last Waltz (1953), Wir tanzen auf dem Regenbogen (1952) and Ferien vom Ich (1963). She was married to Berno von Cramm. She died on 19 September 1996 in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Bavaria, Germany.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Charlotte Susa was born on 1 March 1898 in Memel, East Prussia, Germany [now Klaipeda, Lithuania]. She was an actress, known for Abenteuer im Südexpress (1934), Walzerparadies (1931) and Der Tiger (1930). She was married to Andrews Engelmann. She died on 28 July 1976 in Basel, Switzerland.- Whatever her limitations as an actress, Charlott Daudert made up for with wide-eyed effervescence and a cute, feisty personality. The bubbly blonde began working life as editor of the children's section of a newspaper (as 'Aunty Charlotte') in her home town of Königsberg, East Prussia. She also dabbled in drafting costume designs. The abandonment of her journalistic career seems to have come about all of a sudden and quite by accident: accompanying a friend to a theatrical audition as 'moral support' resulted in Charlotte, not the friend, being signed up for drama school. Her 'discovery' is generally credited to the renowned actor Max Pallenberg who took on the role of her mentor. Known by her peers as 'Charly', she made her debut in a minuscule part in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" and spent the next three years at Tilsit's Stadttheater under Pallenberg's direction. Following a brief stint in local radio, she then moved on to wider canvases in Berlin where she underwent further tuition by Leopold Jessner. By 1933, Charly had developed into an accomplished comedienne and come to the attention of Trude Hesterberg. She began performing comedy routines and singing in various popular cabarets, including "Musenschaukel" and "Die Katakombe". At the same time, she spiced up the screen as perpetually naive, sexy friends of the heroine. Her output was rather heavily weighted towards escapist entertainments, some of them not at all bad: April, April! (1935), Der Etappenhase (1937), Kitty und die Weltkonferenz (1939). Resuming in the same vein in the aftermath of World War II, the ever likeable, pert, dizzy Charlott warbled a popular hit song ("Ach du liebe Zeit, hat den kein Mensch mehr für die Liebe Zeit") in the ruins of Berlin in Nacht ohne Sünde (1950). There were diverse other supporting roles in box-office hits, including the caper comedies Klettermaxe (1952) and Der blaue Stern des Südens (1951). Sadly, despite her enduring popularity as a conveyor of uncomplicated happiness, genuine stardom was never to be on the cards. The decline of Charly's career was to be exacerbated by depression and alcoholism. On occasion, she would come on stage and forget or fumble her lines. By the autumn of 1960, she was making plans to retire from acting and run an artists B & B in Monaco. It never came to pass. Just four months later she was dead from a blood disorder at the age of 47.
- Rosemarie Pasdar was born in Königsberg, East-Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She is known for Made in U.S.A. (1987). She was previously married to Homayoon Pasdar.
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One of Germany's most popular actresses, Witta Pohl started to act on stage before she had major success in film and television. From 1983 to 1994, she starred in the leading role as the mother in the quite popular tv-series "Diese Drombuschs", her most memorable role. In the early Nienties she left her career as an actress behind her and stared to help children and established "Kinder Luftbrücke e.V.", an organisation which arranged transports to children mostly to East Europe. For her humanitarian work, Witta Pohl was awarded with the Golden Camera in 1994 (an award she had already won two times before, for her acting work) and with the Federal cross of Merit. She died from leukemia on April 4, 2011 in Hamburg.- Harry Liedtke was born on 12 October 1882 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Die Konkurrenz platzt (1929), Der Mann ohne Namen - 1. Der Millionendieb (1921) and Die Liebe einer Königin (1923). He was married to Käthe Dorsch, Ernestine Emaline Johanne Proft, Christa Tordy and Hanne Schutt. He died on 28 April 1945 in Bad Saarow, Brandenburg, Germany.
- Herbert Tennigkeit was born on 28 February 1937 in Gröszpelken, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Sonderdezernat K1 (1972), Tatort (1970) and Hamburg Transit (1970). He died on 10 October 2022 in Hamburg, Germany.
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Frank Wisbar was born on 9 December 1899 in Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany [now Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was a director and producer, known for Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959), Hermine und die sieben Aufrechten (1935) and Strangler of the Swamp (1945). He died on 17 March 1967 in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Producer
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She spent her childhood and youth in the country. In 1936 she trained as a pilot in Berlin. In addition to her passion for flying, she already demonstrated strong aspirations for emancipation and a pronounced defiance of social conventions at this time. As a pilot, she initially took part in German Air Force exercises. She also worked as a "pilot" in testing brand-new machines from Flugzeugwerke Friedrich in Strausberg. In 1939, Köstlin married her flight instructor Hans-Jürgen Uhse, whose name she bore from then on and with whom she had a child who died of cancer in 1984. During the Second World War, Uhse transferred fighter-bombers to the front. A year before the end of the war, she survived a serious plane accident, while her husband was killed in the war. After the end of the war and British captivity, the single widow kept herself afloat as a farm worker and traveling salesman in Schleswig-Holstein. Due to her numerous customer contacts with the rural population, she soon developed a special feeling for the private problems of rural women.
After initially creating and distributing free educational brochures, Uhse launched her first commercial educational campaign in Flensburg in 1946, which laid the foundation for her later entrepreneurial activities: The dedicated educator sold the "Schrift X", which had already sold 32,000 copies in 1947. She advised women on contraceptive methods, which were primarily based on calculating infertile days. The guide to contraception that she wrote was in great demand among young couples in the post-war years, as there were numerous unwanted pregnancies among them. In 1949 Uhse married the Flensburg businessman Ernst-Walter Rotermund, with whom she had another child and from whom she separated again in 1972. In 1950 she had the "mail order company Beate Uhse" entered in the Flensburg commercial register. In the 1950s, Uhse expanded its small shipping company into a thriving trading company by expanding its product range.
The success was based on the business idea of taking erotic merchandise out of the taboo zone and opening it up to the general market through solid information and discreet shipping conditions. By offering its "marital hygiene products" under its own name right from the start, Uhse gave mail order sales a personal and serious touch that promoted customer trust. This was also reflected in the numerous letters that the mail order company received since then, and Uhse initially answered their questions about love, eroticism and sexuality herself before leaving it to a doctor. However, the sending of condoms to unmarried couples soon collided with the moral law of the 1950s, which, on the basis of Section 184 of the Criminal Code, which had been in force since 1919, criminalized extramarital sexual intercourse and aiding and abetting it. Uhse's company struggled for decades with investigations by the public prosecutor's office, house searches and publication bans on its catalogs until the criminal law provisions were liberalized in 1975. Against the protests from politics and the church, Uhse campaigned for a liberalization of moral regulations in Germany.
Despite all the resistance, the mail order company's sales reached one million DM in 1956. In 1962, the busy entrepreneur founded the world's first sex shop with her "specialist shop for marital hygiene" in Flensburg. The demand for sex items was so great that a chain of stores quickly developed. After divorcing Rotermund, Uhse married John Holland in 1972. In 1974 their company was called GmbH & Co. KG. The individual business for sex products became a corporation in 1978. Uhse continually tried to come up with new business ideas and offers. A film rental company was added in 1978. The entrepreneur took over other smaller competitors in the market and her company continued to grow. In 1981, the group became a stock corporation that already operated 12 of its own "Blue Movie" cinemas and asserted itself as the market leader in the porn film industry. Here in particular, Uhse's work also met with vehement criticism from the women's movement, which attacked the pornographic industry because of its sexist and misogynistic tendencies. Nevertheless, Uhse's mail order business expanded to become the largest of its kind.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, their stores sprouted like mushrooms in the new federal states. In the 1990s, radio and television in particular became aware of the agile businesswoman, who withdrew from direct management in 1992 in order to only be represented on the company's supervisory board. In 1996 Uhse celebrated its 50th anniversary Business anniversary. In the same year, the "Beate Uhse Erotic Museum" was opened in Berlin. Not only Uhse's achievements in the commercial sector were recognized, but above all her contribution to sexual education in post-war German society. In 1999 she was honored with the erection of a public memorial plaque in Flensburg. A specially created Beate Uhse Women Entrepreneurs Award was intended to honor women who have demonstrated courage, assertiveness, creativity, business acumen, social commitment and leadership in business.
Meanwhile, Uhse's company had also kept pace with the development of the latest technologies, so that the erotic articles were increasingly distributed via telephone, BTX and the Internet. With the expansion of new media, the company's Internet activities also expanded. The "Aktuelle Information" (AI) group of companies was taken over for this line of business. All websites were tailored to customer needs and designed accordingly. But the company also expanded internationally. It founded other branches and companies, for example in Scandinavia. The publishing business was expanded to Sweden, Denmark and Finland. In the Netherlands, majority packages were purchased from other erotic providers. In 1999 the company went public.- Max Gülstorff was born on 23 March 1882 in Tilsit, East Prussia, Germany [now Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Around the World in 80 Days (1919), The False Step (1939) and Ein Glas Wasser (1923). He died on 6 February 1947 in Lichtenrade, Berlin, Germany.
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Kerstin De Ahna was born on 2 July 1935 in Braunsberg, East Prussia, Germany [now Braniewo, Poland]. She is an actress, known for Intercontinental Express (1964), Bob Morane (1964) and Verdammt zur Sünde (1964).- Actress
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Ingeborg Lapsien was born on 16 October 1926 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She was an actress, known for Die unfreiwilligen Reisen des Moritz August Benjowski (1975), Schwarz greift ein (1994) and Amouren (1972). She died on 5 June 2014 in Germany.- Solveig Müller was born on 19 June 1942 in Königsberg, East-Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad, Russia]. She is an actress, known for Das unsichtbare Visier (1973), Tatort (1970) and Liebling Kreuzberg (1986).
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E.T.A. Hoffmann was born on the 24th of January 1776 in Königsberg (now Russia) as the son of a lawyer. After his father's death he has a very bad childhood ending when he went to university to study law between 1792-95. He managed to get into the bureaucratic services of the state Prussia, but was not considered too well. Stations in Bamberg, Poland and elsewhere followed until he succeeded in getting good jobs in Berlin, lastly as a judge after 1814. Hoffmann died on the 25the of June 1822. Hoffmanns interests were widespread. He wrote music, painted pictures and, of course, wrote excellent examples of German literature. His scurrile style of writing, together with a critical tone in many of his works, earned him not too much renommee during lifetime. Today his music and paintings are nearly forgotten, but his writings stand as fantastic examples of German late "Romantik", for example the "Kater Murr" or the "Sandmann". Often connected to the dark side of the soul or the human being, Hoffmann wrote "normal" literature too, but his fame is basicly grounded on the "dark" literature.- German playwright and novelist Hermann Sudermann was born into a poor family in Matziken, East Prussia, in 1857. His father was a brewer and descended from a line of very strict fundamentalist Mennonite Christians; one of his ancestors, Daniel Sudermann, was a Protestant clergyman who played a major role in fomenting the religious wars that wracked Europe in the 18th century.
As a young boy Hermann was apprenticed to a pharmacist but he detested the smell of the medicines and formulas in the pharmacy and ran away. He attended Konigsburg University, where he studied history and philology. However, he chafed at the restrictions and conventions of academic life at the time, and one day just stood up in the middle of a class and left, never to return.
He next showed up in Berlin, attempting to break into legitimate theatre as a writer, but met with such little success that he was forced to take a job as a private tutor in order to survive. He managed to get a job as an editor on a small political weekly, but eventually turned out a few novels that met with some success, "Frau Sorge" and "Geschwister", and in 1889 his play "Die Ehre" was produced in Berlin. In 1890 his novel "Katzensteg" (aka "Regina") attracted attention for its sympathetic portrayals of the poor and downtrodden.
His 1891 novel "Sodoms Ende" was declared "immoral" and temporarily banned by court order. His next work, however, is undoubtedly his most famous: the play "Heimat" (aka "Magda"), a major hit on stage (and a favorite of such stage luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanora Duse ad Mrs. Patrick Campbell).
Apart from the occasional novel, Sudermann concentrated on writing plays for the next several years, but not entirely successfully. He actually achieved more success as a novelist than as a playwright, although the modern perception of him is generally exactly the opposite.
He died in Berlin, Germany, in 1928. - Christine Laszar was born on 19 December 1931 in Ortelsburg, East Prussia, Germany. She was an actress, known for Der Traum des Hauptmann Loy (1961), Hamida (1966) and Der Mann mit dem Objektiv (1961). She was married to Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler and Rudolf Schündler. She died on 17 November 2021 in Berlin, Germany.
- Sandow was already a great admirer of Greek and Roman statues of gladiators and mythical heroes when his father took him to Italy as a boy. By the time he was 19, he was already performing strongman stunts in side shows. The legendary Florenz Ziegfeld saw the young strongman and hired him for his carnival show. He soon found that the audience was far more fascinated by Sandows' bulging muscles than by the amount of weight he was lifting, so Ziegfeld had Sandow perform poses which he dubbed "muscle display performances." The legendary strongman added these displays in addition to performing his feats of strength with barbells. He also added chain-around-the-chest breaking and other colorful displays to Sandows routine. Sandow quickly became a sensation and Ziegfeld's first star.
Sandow's resemblance to the physiques found on classic Greek and Roman sculpture was no accident. He actually measured the marble artworks in museums and helped to develope "The Grecian Ideal" as a formula for the perfect physique. He built his physique to those exact proportions. Because of this, he is considered to be the father of modern bodybuilding, having been one of the first athletes to intentionally develope his musculature to pre-determined dimensions.
Sandow performed all over Europe and came to America to perform at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He could be seen in a black velvet-lined box with his body covered in white powder to appear even more like a marble statue come to life. His popularity grew since he was cultured, highly intelligent, and well-mannered. He also dressed very well and had a charming European accent, coupled with deep blue eyes and hearty laugh. He wrote several books on bodybuilding, nutrition and encouraged a healthy lifestyle as being as important as having a sound mind.
He was married to Blanche Brooks Sandow, had 2 daughters, but was probably unfaithful to her, since he was constantly in the company of women who paid money to feel his flexed muscles back stage after his stage performances. He also had a close relationship to a male musician he hired to accompany him during his shows. The man was Martinus Sieveking, a handsome pupil of Sandow. The degree of their relationship has never been determined, but they lived together in New York for a time.
Sandow knew many famous people in his lifetime... among his friends were Arthur Conan Doyle; Thomas Edison, who made early motion pictures of Sandow; the King of England; Isabella Gardner of Boston and many other celebrities of the day. Sandow invented many bodybuilding exercises, some still used today, and equipment such as a lightweight dumbbell-shaped hand exerciser that was spring-loaded. He was quite generous with his time and money -- out of his own pocket, he paid the housing costs of foreign athletes at the Olympic Games held in London. Sandow was the promoter and judge at the first bodybuilding contest ever held, in New York on September 14, 1901. Sandow also made a world tour in 1903. He died prematurely in 1925 at age 58 of a stroke shortly after pushing his car out of the mud.
Sandow was a charming, intelligent and industrious man who worked very hard for what he earned. He also inspired countless men to look at their bodies as something at least as important as their minds, since for several decades in the 19th century, more men were working in offices as clerks, bankers and other jobs which turned many bodies pale and weak. He changed countless attitudes about health and fitness, and we continue to feel its effects today. - Ursula Karusseit was born on 2 August 1939 in Elbing, East Prussia, Germany [now Elblag, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for In aller Freundschaft (1998), Refuge (1997) and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1988). She was married to Johannes Wegner and Benno Besson. She died on 1 February 2019 in Berlin, Germany.
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Jockel Stahl was born on 20 September 1911 in Oberförsterei Kranichbruch, East Prussia, Germany [now Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia]. He was an actor, known for Charleys Tante (1956), Tanz mit dem Kaiser (1941) and Geld aus der Luft (1954). He was married to Liselotte Köster. He died on 28 April 1957 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany.- Erwin Geschonneck was born on 27 December 1906 in Bartenstein/East Prussia (now Poland). In the Twenties, he became a member of the Communistic Party of Germany. After rise of Nazism, he emigrated to Poland, later to Latvia and Czechoslovakia. In the Soviet Union he became a member of a German theatre company. In 1938 he was arrested in Prague and was deported to different concentration camps. Finally he was evacuated from the concentration camp of Neuengamme near Hamburg to Denmark. But the boat, the Cap Arcona, was accidentally bombed by the RAF. The ship sank in the bay of Lübeck, and Geschonneck was one of only a few survivors. In 1945 he played theatre in Hamburg and had his film debut in Helmut Käutner's post-war drama 'In Jenen Tagen'. It was the famous 'Bertholt Brecht' who offered him a contract for his Berlin Ensemble. Geschonneck moved to East Berlin and became a star of the newly founded DEFA, the only production company of the German Democratic Republic.
- Doris Gallart was born on 28 October 1936 in East Prussia, Germany. She was an actress, known for Amouren (1972), Es muß nicht immer Kaviar sein (1977) and Das Ferienschiff (1968). She was married to Herbert Bötticher. She died on 1 September 2018 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
- Kurt Zehe was born on 12 January 1913 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. He was an actor, known for So ein Früchtchen (1942), The Black Forest Girl (1950) and Schwarzwälder Kirsch (1958). He died in 1969.