To be sure, most German actresses dream of
becoming famous beyond the borders of their home country. Only a few,
however, have actually made it – film critic, Birgit Roschy, presents
the ten most successful actresses.
Of all the German actresses who have managed to rise to
super-stardom and gain mythical status all over the world, the front
runner undoubtedly has to be the never-to-be forgotten Marlene Dietrich.
She was a cosmopolitan citizen of the world, who decided not to return
to her old home. Since Marlene, however, no other female star from
Germany has come anywhere near to exuding star allure of this kind.
Whereas directors like Roland Emmerich and Wolfgang Petersen managed to
make a career in Hollywood, the heart of the entertainment industry,
Germany’s promising actresses were denied access due to the language
barrier. In these times, however, of global cooperation and
international co-productions, there are now more and more character
actresses being recognised and idolised, not only on the streets of
Berlin, but also in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. These include, for
example, Franka Potente, the cool icon of the reunified city of Berlin
or Marianne Sägebrecht from Bavaria. Not to mention Hanna Schygulla, who
embodies a certain epoch in German film history, just as Marlene
Dietrich once did. There are, however, some German actresses who made it
onto the world’s silver screens, but went almost unnoticed at home by
German audiences. This is an honours list, commending ten of these
“outstanding” actresses from Germany.
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich, undatiert | Photo (detail): © dpa/Bert Reisfeld
In 1929 director, Josef von Sternberg, was on the look-out for a leading actress to play in the German UFA film Der blaue Engel
(The Blue Angel). Although at first he thought Marlene Dietrich, born
in Berlin in 1901, was a “silly goose”, he engaged the one-time showgirl
for the role of Lola Lola, an unscrupulous honky-tonk dancer. The Blue Angel was
the birth of a myth – after the worldwide success of the film, the
actress followed Sternberg to Hollywood and in glamorous productions she
let her mentor stylise her into an erotic goddess. In films such as Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930), Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932) and Destry Rides Again
(George Marshall, 1939), she embodied a hitherto unaccustomed female
image: half-ruthless femme fatale, half-rebel, armed with an
irresistible nonchalance. Even in real life, the style icon and opponent
of national socialism, who wore trousers suits and had love affairs
with both sexes, had an unconventional image. Post-war Germany, however,
was hostile to the former emigrant, who embarked on a second superstar
career as a singer, and treated her as if she were a “traitor”.
Dietrich, the greatest German international star, in the end turned her
back on Germany and retired to Paris, where she lived until her death in
1992. In 1999, she was the only German film star to be selected by the
American Film Institute as one of the 25 greatest female screen legends
of all time.
Hildegard Knef
Hildegrad Knef, 1973 in Austria | Photo (detail): © dpa/Horst Ossinger
Hardly any other female showbiz star from the last few
decades was so revered and, at the same time, so hated by audiences as
“die Knef”, as she was known in Germany. As early as in 1951, the young
girl from Berlin caused the biggest scandal of the prudish post-war
period by appearing nude for a few seconds in the melodrama, Die Sünderin
(The Sinner). Even before that, just after the end of the Nazi period,
the up-and-coming young actress from the UFA studios, who was born in
1925, had already caused quite a stir in the brilliant role she played
in the drama, Die Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers are Among
Us, 1946), directed by Wolfgang Staudte, in 1946. That led to her being
offered contracts by Hollywood studios. In the USA, the beauty with the
brittle sex appeal embarked on a remarkable career that was crowned by
the Ninochka role in the Broadway musical, Silk Stockings. Ella
Fitzgerald said she was the “best singer in the world without a voice”.
Back home in Germany, however, this artistic multi-talent was filling
concert halls with people who wanted to hear her sing her own chansons,
for example, Für mich soll’s rote Rosen regnen (Let it rain red
roses for me). She was the ever-so-human diva, who revealed her private
ups and downs in her autobiographical bestseller, Der geschenkte Gaul (The Gift Horse). She had already become a legend even before she died in 2002.
Hanna Schygulla
Hanna Schygulla | Photo (detail): © Dorothea Wimmer
No other actress represents the most rebellious phase of
German cinema like this wayward artist. Born in Silesia in 1943, she
grew up in Munich, where later she became the muse of the legendary
director, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who, with his radicalism, swept away
what was known as the “grandpa’s cinema” of the post-war period. In
twelve years she appeared in 23 of his films, including Lili Marleen (1980) and Die Ehe der Maria Braun
(The Marriage of Maria Braun, 1978), the films that led to her
breakthrough on the international scene. After Fassbinder’s early death,
the introverted artist moved to Paris and became the actress of choice
for European filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, Carlos Saura, Jean-Luc
Godard and Ettore Scola. Her seemingly lascivious aura also lent wings
to her second, equally successful career as a chanson singer. Wach auf und träume
(Wake Up and Dream), is the title of her autobiography that speaks for
itself. In it, the grand dame of European art house cinema describes
herself as an anti-star and a wanderer between the worlds.
Marianne Sägebrecht
Marianne Sägebrecht, 2010 | Photo (detail): © dpa/Tobias Hase
Back in 1987, a Bavarian housewife in a smart loden suit
ended up stranded in the Arizona desert and ended up also inspiring
American art-house audiences. The comedy Out of Rosenheim (Baghdad Café, Percy Adlon 1987) presented Marianne Sägebrecht, as the New York Times noted, as “indescribably charismatic”. She was born as the daughter of a gardener in Starnberg in 1945, but since Baghdad Café she has also been recognized on the streets of Los Angeles and Paris. Her performances in the US comedies Moon Over Parador (Paul Mazursky, 1988) and The War of the Roses (Danny deVito, 1989) or with Michel Piccoli in the romantic drama Martha and I (Martha
et Moi, Jirí Weiss, 1990), confirmed her status as an exceptional
artist. “A movie must be well seasoned. And I am the garlic”, says
Sägebrecht. She was trained as a doctor’s receptionist and used to run a
legendary artist’s bar in Munich. Occasionally she worked on the side
in cabaret and theatre, until she was discovered by director Percy Adlon
and scored a hit with his quirky romantic comedy Zuckerbaby
(Sugar Baby, 1985). Since then, it has been almost impossible to imagine
the film scene without Sägebrecht: “i am one of the last elephant
mothers left roaming the grasslands of the celluloid world”.
Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa | Photo (detail): © Concorde Filmverleih
Like many of the stars born in the post-war era, the
merchant’s daughter, Barbara Sukowa, born in Bremen in 1950, celebrated
her breakthrough with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As “Mieze”, a
character in his acclaimed series Berlin Alexanderplatz and as Lola in the drama Lola (1980), she
became the perfect choice to play great, tragic female leads. As the
muse of Margarethe von Trotta, she portrayed the RAF terrorist Gudrun
Ensslin in Die bleierne Zeit (The German Sisters, 1981), the German-Polish socialist in the eponymous Rosa Luxemburg (1986), the philosophical theorist Hannah Arendt (2012), and in Vision – From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009),
even a saint. But the mother of three and wife of the multi-medialist
Robert Longo managed to launch a second career in New York. She sings in
both classical concerts as well as in her own rock band and
occasionally makes the odd guest appearance in cool films like John
Turturro’s Romance & Cigarettes (2005). Her work in the USA has enabled her to finally learn “how to smile”, says Sukowa.
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski, 2015 at the Venice Film festival | Photo (detail): © dpa/Ettore Ferrari
In 1977 a sixteen-year-old, lovesick schoolgirl with pouting lips and green eyes appeared in an episode of the popular Tatort detective series called Reifezeugnis (Graduation
Exam) – and the whole of Germany fell for her. Nastassja Kinski
developed into an internationally sought after actress and went on to
make films with, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski and Paul Schrader,
to name but a few. “Nasti”, as she was nicknamed, celebrated her
greatest success in Wim Wenders’ film Paris Texas in 1985. He
discovered her in a disco in Munich when she was twelve and gave her a
small role – her first taste of show business. It was her sensitivity
and sensuality that lent romantic flair to Wender's German-American road
movie – and that created gooseflesh all round. This image of the
seductive Lolita, who was born in West Berlin in 1961, often, however,
stood in the way of the daughter of actor, Klaus Kinski. She lives in
Hollywood and as an actress and a mother of three seems to manage her
life well there, but particularly in her old home country she still
embodies the image of the dazzling nymphet, somewhere between “femme
fatale” and “femme fragile”.
Franka Potente
Franka Potente, Los Angeles 2014 | Photo (detail): © dpa/D. Long
In the film Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run, Tom Tykwer)
from 1998 Franka Potente caused quite a sensation as a tattooed
punk-minx with flame-red hair. This aesthetically experimental film set
in Berlin, which shows three versions of the heroine running through the
city to raise a hundred thousand deutschmarks to save her boyfriend’s
life, turned Potente into the flagship of a new, cool German cinema. In
the USA the cult film became the second biggest German box office hit
after Das Boot (The Boot, Wolfgang Petersen, 1980) and enabled Potente to take on roles alongside stars like Johnny Depp in Blow and Matt Damon in the Bourne
action series. It was not work, however, that prompted Ms. Potente to
move to Los Angeles, but love. The actress divides her time between her
family in L.A. and her many appearances in US and German cinema films
and series. In addition, the artist, who was born in Münster in 1974,
has also gained recognition as a writer and a director of short films.
Christiane Paul
Christiane Paul, 2016 | Photo (detail): © dpa/Stephan Persch
Born in East Germany in 1974, this actress first opted
for a career to become a doctor, but while she was studying medicine,
she started taking her first tentative steps in front of the camera. It
was not, however, until after her PhD thesis in 2004 that she decided
entirely on a career in acting. By this time the cheerful-looking woman
with the “Julia Roberts” mouth had long since become one of the most
popular and well-known faces of German film and television. The actress
managed to break through in 1997 with a comedy about Berlin called Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (Life
is All you Get, Wolfgang Becker), in which she plays a street musician.
Christiane Paul, who has worked with some of the most renowned
contemporary directors such as Theo Angelopoulos in The Dust of Time (2008), Fatih Akin in Im Juli (In July, 2000), and Dennis Gansel in Die Welle
(The Wave, 2008), is known for radiating a appeal as the “young woman
from next door”. Up until now, Christiane Paul has only rarely been seen
in international films, but in 2016 she was the first German actress to
be awarded an Emmy, the US television Oscar, for her role in the
terrorist thriller Unterm Radar (Under The Radar, Elmar Fischer, 2015).
Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger, 42.Deauville US Film Festival 2016 | Photo (detail): © dpa/Franck Castel / Wostok Press
Few would have predicted that this young woman, who
switched from the cat walk to the screen like so many star models before
her, would make a respectable career for herself in the movie business.
One well known film critic even slated Diane Kruger as “too beautiful
to ever play a role with depth”. With the same light-footedness,
however, with which the trained ballet dancer used to move along the
catwalks, she has been moving between US, French and German film
locations for many years – and between blockbusters and character roles.
Born in the state of Lower Saxony in 1976 under the name Heidkrüger,
she went to Paris at the age of 16 to start a modelling career. When she
celebrated her international breakthrough in 2004 as the beautiful
Helen in the historical epic Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004), she
was already a recognised actress in France. She went on to make other
Hollywood blockbusters such as National Treasure (Jon Turteltaub, 2004) and Inglourious Basterds (Quentin
Tarantino, 2009), making her the most popular German actress on an
international level. That, however, did not stop the heart of this
trilingual, citizen of the world continuing to beat for European art
house cinema.
Alexandra Maria Lara
Alexandra Maria Lara, 2015 | Photo (detail): © dpa/Federik von Erichsen
This actress is, in fact, an emigrant. She was born in
Romania in Bucharest in 1978. She and her family fled the Ceauşescu
regime and came to Germany in 1983. Be it dramas by filmmaker Doris
Dörrie such as Der Fischer und seine Frau (The Fisherman and his
Wife, 2005), comedies or children’s films – from an early age, the
actress, who learned her craft in Romania from her father, a one-time
theatre star, established herself quickly and effortlessly in the major
league of German cinema. Her international breakthrough came with the
role of Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge, in Der Untergang
(Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel) in 2004. The discreetly living star, who
also became a member of the Cannes Film Festival jury, developed into
an internationally successful actress without gaining very much
attention from German audiences. Francis Ford Coppola, who cast her in
his metaphysical drama Jugend ohne Jugend (Youth without Youth,
2007), was up to now the best known of all the directors and world stars
– like Spike Lee, Stephen Daldry, James Ivory and Gérard Depardieu –
with whom the versatile artist has worked.
