Erna Morena

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Erna Morena, photograph (around 1925) by Alexander Binder

Erna Morena (born April 24, 1885 in Wörth am Main ; † July 20, 1962 in Munich ; real name: Ernestine Maria Fuchs ) was a German film actress , film producer and screenwriter during the time of silent and the beginnings of talkies .

Life

Erna Morena, photograph (around 1928) by Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski

Born into a middle-class family, Erna Morena went to Munich at the age of 17 to attend the arts and crafts school. She later spent half a year in Paris until she finally moved to Berlin at the end of the first decade and worked there as a nurse .

Presumably she was also taking lessons at the drama school of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, for whose ensemble Max Reinhardt hired her as an actress in 1910 . In the following year she worked here in small roles. In 1912 she came to film.

She made her film debut in 1913 in Die Sphinx by Eugen Illés for the newly founded film production company Literaria Film by Alfred Duskes , her salary there was 500 marks per month, i.e. around 2,016 euros. In total, she acted in about 120 films. She worked under well-known directors such as Paul Leni , Richard Oswald , Robert Wiene , Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Georg Wilhelm Pabst and played alongside great colleagues such as Conrad Veidt , Emil Jannings , Reinhold Schünzel and Werner Krauss .

She was one of the most unusual stars of the German silent film: dark-haired, tall and with distinctive facial features, she had a star appeal like Greta Garbo later and was mentioned in the same breath as Asta Nielsen and Henny Porten . However, her name is largely forgotten today.

Morena also tried herself as a producer: in 1918 she founded Erna Morena Film GmbH in Berlin , supported by some friends as a partner with whom she a. a. produced the silent films Colomba (1918 with Werner Krauss) and The 999th Night (1919/1920 with Hans Albers ).

From 1915 to 1921 Erna Morena was married to the writer Wilhelm Herzog . The couple had their daughter Eva-Maria Herzog (1915-2007).

Erna Morena played the role of the consistorial councilor's wife in the Nazi propaganda film Jud Süss .

Erna Morena was on the Winthirfriedhof in Munich - Neuhausen buried next to her mother. Not far from there is the grave of her brother, the Brentano researcher Friedrich Fuchs , who was married to Ruth Schaumann .

The family grave of Erna Morena (with mother and daughter) in the Neuhauser Friedhof in Munich.

Filmography

literature

Web links

Commons : Erna Morena  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Birett : Light plays. The cinema in Germany until 1914. Q-Verlag, Munich 1994, p. XXXV.
personal data
SURNAME Morena, Erna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fuchs, Ernestine Maria (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film actress, producer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Woerth am Main
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1962
Place of death Munich