Elvira Berndorff

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Elvira Berndorff (born Elvira D. around 1934 ; died on July 27, 2018 in Düsseldorf ) was a German model , actress , photographer and painter . She was a leading actress in the 1968 horror and exploitation film In the Castle of Bloody Desire .

Career

Elvira Berndorff took part in the Miss Germany beauty pageant in the mid-1950s and came in second. This was followed by several smaller engagements as a model. She went to Paris and tried to gain a foothold there. After a fruitless attempt to get hired by Vogue , she was referred from there to Dorian Leigh's modeling agency . Within a few months, Berndorff became one of the most sought-after models in the city. Otto Preminger became aware of her and gave her a small supporting role in his 1957 film Bonjour Tristesse , but her husband, who was left behind with their son in Düsseldorf, refused to agree to continue working as a film actress. Unsatisfied with the limited opportunities to work in Europe, Berndorff went to New York City for four years to work with photographers such as Bert Stern , Richard Avedon and Irving Penn and to take lessons from Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio . Berndorff continued to work as a photo model, photos appeared in the French magazine Marie Claire , on the cover of the January 1962 issue of the Spanish magazine Fotogramas, other magazines, on calendars and as pin-ups .

In 1968 Berndorff played a leading role under the director Adrian Hoven in the horror and exploitation film In the Castle of Bloody Desire . She later described this role as a "slip", but it was "fun".

At the end of the 1950s, Berndorff began taking photos, initially only as a hobby. After her stay in the United States, it became a profession, she created photo reports from Haiti, Brazil and the Caribbean and photo essays on artists such as Miguel Berrocal and João Charters de Almeida . Her artistic work was referred to as structure photographs, and she also produced photo series that are reminiscent of Duane Michals ' work . She enjoyed great recognition in the professional world, and she was extensively portrayed several times in specialist magazines. Berndorff lived in France for a long time, maintained her own studio as a painter and photographer, and frequented the Parisian art scene.

In France, Berndorff had had a following since the 1970s, who followed her not because of her film role and artistic activity, but because of her involvement in areas such as astrology and shamanism . In 2008 the astrologer Jacques Halbronn, popular in France, published long interviews with Berndorff in which she spoke about astrology and shamanism.

Elvira Berndorff had two siblings and a son born in 1953, but recently lived very secluded in her Düsseldorf apartment. In 2004, her wealthy mother, whom she had looked after to the last, died. In July 2018, she received a visit from her three years younger brother, a businessman living in Venezuela. There were repeated arguments, in addition to the brother's alcohol consumption, it also concerned the final division of the mother's inheritance. Elvira Berndorff was killed by her brother during an argument with a wine bottle on the evening of July 27, 2018.

The brother's lawyer asserted that his client had been attacked by Berndorff and that the attacker, in her religious madness, had acted so aggressively against him that he had to defend himself in self-defense. The perpetrator was in February 2019 by the District Court of Dusseldorf because of a less serious case of manslaughter to imprisonment sentenced of three years and ten months.

Filmography

literature

  • unknown author: Portrait: Elvira Berndorff . In: News Reporter. Le magazine de l'actualité photo-ciné , issue 4/1976, ISSN  0154-3385
  • Jörg Krichbaum: From model to master photographer. Elvira Berndorff . In: Photo , Heft 7/1979, pp. 50-59, ZDB -ID 1296404-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jörg Krichbaum: From model to master photographer. Elvira Berndorff . In: Photo , Heft 7/1979, pp. 50-59, ZDB -ID 1296404-9 .
  2. ^ A b c Günther Classen: Actress Elvira D. killed in Düsseldorf: her life ended like in a horror film . In: Express Düsseldorf , July 30, 2018, accessed on January 25, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b Dieter Sieckmeyer: After a dispute about the inheritance: 81-year-old killed his sister (84) . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung , January 25, 2019, accessed on January 25, 2019.
  4. ↑ Wulf Kannegießer: 81-year-old convicted of manslaughter of his sister , RP Online , February 8, 2019, accessed on April 5, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Berndorff, Elvira
ALTERNATIVE NAMES D., Elvira (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German model, actress, photographer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1934
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2018
Place of death Dusseldorf