Else Eckersberg

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Else Eckersberg and Johannes Riemann in Franz Molnar's Carnival (1917)
Else Eckersberg (around 1920)
Grave slab of Else Eckersberg and her husband in Jagsthausen

Else Eckersberg (born January 5, 1895 in Berlin ; † November 2, 1989 in Neureichenau ) was an actress on Max Reinhardt's stages .

family

Else was born as the daughter of Paul Eckersberg and Antonie, geb. Tessel, born in Berlin. After the early death of her father, she grew up with her grandparents and in the Ursuline boarding school .

In 1913, Else Eckersberg's first marriage was the lawyer Walther Eitzen. After the divorce in 1918, she married Philipp Freiherr Schey von Koromla in Berlin in 1921, from whom she divorced in 1935. Her third marriage was on May 5, 1940 in Berlin, Paul Graf Yorck von Wartenburg . Their only child was Alexander (1927–2012) from their second marriage.

Life

After completing secondary school , Else Eckersberg entered the drama school of the German Theater under the direction of Max Reinhardt at the age of 15 and, after two years of training, was the only girl next to Gert Fricke , Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau , Ernst Waldow , Ernst Lubitsch and Ernst Hofmann for further training accepted. In a private performance of Wedekind's Death and the Devil , Else was discovered in the role of the prostitute Lisiska in 1912 and Reinhardt hired her as the youngest member of his ensemble .

On August 31, 1912, she made her debut at the Deutsches Theater as Klugheit in Goethe's Faust II .

Under Reinhardt's direction , she also ventured an early foray into silent film and shot A Venetian Night in the spring of 1913 . Other film roles followed, but Eckersberg later only worked in the theater , where she excelled in glamorous, slightly capricious, fun-loving and humorous roles for women and girls.

After a guest performance in operetta , she made her breakthrough in 1920 in the role of Cleopatra in Shaw's play Caesar and Cleopatra . Numerous engagements at Berlin and Vienna theaters followed.

When Reinhardt left Berlin in 1921, Else Eckersberg also left the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater and in the years that followed played mainly comedies at various entertainment theaters.

In 1924 she again enjoyed great success as Dodo in Hopwood's Our Little Woman at Reinhardt's Kammerspiele and as Antoinette Hechingen in Hofmannsthal's Der Schwierige at the Vienna Theater in the Josefstadt .

Early 30s the Eckerberg because of their roles was Antoinette in Hofmannsthal's The Difficult , Christina in Bourdets The weaker sex and Amanda in Coward's intimacies of the Berlin theater critics hailed as a female comedian of the first rank, as captivating clown and funny Parodistin.

In 1932 she played alongside Hans Brausewetter in her self-written play Drei Jahre und ein Nacht , which was staged by Eugen Robert, the director of the Berlin Tribüne, under the heading Feldena .

After the seizure of power of the Nazis themselves Else Eckersberg moved more and more from the stage. The actually apolitical actress suffered from the fate of her Jewish colleagues and friends. In 1934 she played again under Otto Falckenberg in the Münchner Kammerspiele Cowards Intimitäten , in 1935 under Heinz Hilpert in Hauptmanns Griselda and under Gründgens the Queen in Scribes Das Glas Wasser .

On the occasion of Gerhart Hauptmann's 80th birthday , Eckersberg, who was a close friend of the poet, recited Hanneles Himmelfahrt for the first time . She performed with this piece several times after the Second World War and showed all of her acting skills in the nuanced representation of the various people.

In 1944 Else Eckersberg was arrested as the sister-in-law of Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, who was involved in the assassination attempt on July 20, and was kept in solitary confinement for two months.

In 1958 Else Eckersberg published her memoirs under the title This Full Time , in which she once again shed light on the sunken heyday of the era of Berlin theater before the Second World War.

In the following years she lived in Lyon and Bucharest due to her husband's diplomatic activities and after his retirement in Neureichenau , where she died in 1989. She was buried in Jagsthausen in the tomb of the Barons von Berlichingen , ancestors of her husband on her mother's side.

Roles (selection)

  • 1912 Whore Lisiska in Wedekind's Death and the Devil
  • 1912 Cleverness in Goethe's Faust II
  • 1912 Page in Shakespeare's Henry IV
  • 1913 Thekla Hickethier in Sternheims Bürger Schnippel
  • 1913 Masà in Tolstoy's The Living Corpse
  • 1913 Hermia in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream
  • 1913 Gretchen in Goethe's Faust
  • 1913 Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet
  • 1914 Chow Wau in Hazeltone / Benrimos The yellow jacket
  • 1914 Sabine in Kotzebues The German small townspeople
  • 1915 Sidselill in Hauptmanns Schluck und Jau
  • 1915 Lieschen in Raimunds Rappelkopf
  • 1916 Adelheid in Hauptmanns beaver fur
  • 1916 Franziska Wermelskirch in Hauptmanns Fuhrmann Henschel
  • 1916 Katharina in Kalisch / Weihrauchs Die Mottenburger
  • 1916 The little one in Forster-Larrinaga's flea in the tank house
  • 1916 Cherubin at Beaumarchais Figaro's wedding
  • 1917 Countess Liszka in Molnár's carnival
  • 1918 daughter in Kaisers Koralle
  • 1918 Anjutka in Tolstoy's power of darkness
  • 1919 Pippa in Hauptmanns Und Pippa dances!
  • 1920 Myrrhins in Aristophanes Lysistrata
  • 1920 Cleopatra in Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra
  • 1921 Ingeborg in Goetz ' Ingeborg
  • 1922 Scampolo in Nicodemis Scampolo
  • 1924 Dodo in Hopwoods Our Little Wife
  • 1924 Antoinette in Hofmannsthals The Difficult
  • 1924 Toinette in Moliéres The imaginary patient
  • 1925 Margaret Orme in Galsworthy's company
  • 1930 Antoinette in Hofmannsthals The Difficult
  • 1931 Christina in Bourdets The Weaker Sex
  • 1931 Amanda in Coward's Intimacies
  • 1931 Antoinette in Hofmannsthal's The Difficult (Salzburg Festival)
  • 1932 title role in Eckersberg's keyword Feldena
  • 1934 Amanda in Cowards Between Evening and Morning
  • 1935 Baroness in Hauptmanns Griselda
  • 1935 Queen in Scribes Glass of Water
  • 1942–1952 recitation of Hauptmann's Hanneles Himmelfahrt

Filmography (selection)

Works

  • Three years and one night. A comedy. Felix Bloch Erben, Berlin 1932.
  • This full time ... Two from the theater. Heinrich Scheffler, Frankfurt am Main 1958.

Literature and source

  • Marcus Bier: Actor portraits. 24 actors around Max Reinhardt (= contributions to theater, film and television from the Institute for Theater Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Vol. 2). Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-44-3 .

Web links

Commons : Else Eckersberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


personal data
SURNAME Eckersberg, Else
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yorck von Wartenburg, Else Countess
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 2nd 1989
Place of death Neureichenau