Anna Sten

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Anna Sten

Anna Sten (actually Anna Petrivna Fesak, Ukrainian: Анна Петрівна Фесак; born June 29, 1908 in Kiev ; † November 12, 1993 in New York City ) was a Ukrainian - American actress of the late silent and early talkies era.

biography

Anna Sten (whose birth dates and names are often confused with those of the Moscow-born actress Anel Sudakevič) was born in Kiev, Russia, as the daughter of a Russian ballet teacher and a Swedish actress. She received ballet lessons and initially worked as a waitress before starting acting training at the Stanislavsky Institute in Moscow .

She made her film debut in 1926 in a film by Fyodor Ozep . Among other things, she worked in the curious collage film The Kiss of Mary Pickford in 1927, which was produced by Sergei Komarov from newsreel material after Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks traveled to the Soviet Union without their knowledge . After a few roles in films by Boris Barnet , Jakow Protasanow and Evgeni Tscherwjakow , she went to Germany in 1930, where she worked for two years. She attracted international attention through the Ozep film The Murderer Dimitri Karamasoff, based on the novel The Karamazov Brothers by Fyodor Dostoyevsky .

The Hollywood -producer Samuel Goldwyn gave her then a contract and brought them to America in 1932. With a hitherto unknown publicity hype, Sten was launched as a competitor to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich . Her films were produced with great effort and Goldwyn always gave her important stars by her side. Dorothy Arzner led her through her debut as Nana based on the eponymous novel by Émile Zola , Rouben Mamoulian adapted the film version of Resurrection of Lev Tolstoy under the title We Live Again with Fredric March as her partner. But the audience was unimpressed by Anna Sten and she soon became the mockery of the city as Goldwyn's Folly (roughly: Goldwyn's folly ), Cole Porter also made fun of it in his famous song Anything Goes .

The producer soon broke the contract and Anna Sten made a few more B-films . In 1936 she went to England, where she worked in films until 1962. She was active in the theater and occasionally appeared on television. Most recently she lived in New York with her husband Eugene Frenke .

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Anna Sten  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ukrainian Wikipedia uk: Анна_Стен
personal data
SURNAME Sten, Anna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anna Petrivna Fesak
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian-American actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiev
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1993
Place of death New York City