Gert Riederer

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Gertraud "Gert" Ruthilde Riederer , also known under her pseudonym Laura McCann or as Gert Riederer-McCann (born May 14, 1911 in Berlin ; † September or October 2018 ), was a German-American theater actress .

Life

The daughter of the writer Franz Riederer and the actress Franzi Ilmar took acting lessons from Lina Carstens and Detlef Sierck . She then appeared on various German-speaking stages. On February 18, 1933 she was a “nurse” in the ensemble of the world premiere of Georg Kaiser's Der Silbersee with the music of Kurt Weill at the Old Theater in Leipzig . This play, staged by Riederer's drama teacher Sierck and starring Erhard Siedel , Alexander Golling and Lina Carstens, was the last performance of a play by Kurt Weill in Germany before the end of World War II. In the same year (1933) she received from City theater in Glogau in Silesia her first permanent engagement. In the period that followed, Gert Riederer, whose mother was Jewish, was no longer able to perform in public. However, she did not emigrate, but only survived the Holocaust by hiding underground for twelve years. Her first husband, the painter Gerhard Fietz, with whom she had a son, therefore separated from her.

After the Second World War she played at the Kleine Komödie in Munich and hosted radio programs together with Helmuth M. Backhaus . In 1948 she emigrated to the USA with her second husband, with whom she had another son, where she was naturalized in California on April 11, 1952 . From then on she worked in Los Angeles under the pseudonym Laura McCann on stage, film and television. Walter Wicclair cast her as "Gretchen" in his staging of Goethe's Faust , which he performed on the occasion of the poet's 200th birthday in Los Angeles in collaboration with the German department of the University of Southern California with Norbert Schiller in the title role and himself as Mephisto . After Leopold Jessner , Wicclair was the second director to consciously cast a black-haired “Gretchen”. McCann received positive criticism for her portrayal of Ludwig Marcuse in the structure .

Since 1964, in addition to her work in Los Angeles, Gert Riederer has also performed regularly in the Federal Republic, especially in the Munich area, at the theater. In 1973 she spent a few months with the Bhagwan sect in India.

In her over 60-year stage career she played numerous classic stage roles such as "Juliet" in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , both "Ophelia" and "Queen Gertrud" in Shakespeare's Hamlet , the title role in Friedrich Schiller's Maria Stuart , the " Sister Salvation "in Jack Gelber's The Connection , the" Mrs. Danvers ”in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and in 1992, at the age of 81,“ Maria Josefa ”in Federico García Lorca's Bernarda Alba's house . On the occasion of her portrayal of the aged actress in Robert Woodruff Anderson's The Last Act is a Solo , who prefers suicide over the end of her career with extras, she was portrayed by Linda Feldman for the Los Angeles Times in 1993 .

Gert Riederer was a rare guest in film productions. For example, she starred in Helmut Käutner's television production of Bel Ami with Helmut Griem in the lead role and directed by Peter Beauvais in Finito l'amor with Camilla Spira .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1968: Bel Ami
  • 1972: Finito l'amor

literature

  • Cooperative of German Stage Members (publisher), German Stage Yearbook 2007 , Verlag Bühnenschriften-Vertriebs-Gesellschaft mbH, Hamburg, 2007, page 866 ISSN  0070-4431
  • Who's Who in the Arts and Literature , Vol. 2: Applied Arts and Music , Karl Strute and Theodor Doelken (Eds.), 3rd edition, Zurich: red series 1983, p. 536.
  • Linda Feldman: Veteran Actress Is Far More Than a Survivor , in: Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1993 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On September 5, 1993, an article in the Los Angeles Times stated her age to be 82. Berlin as place of origin according to Walter Wicclair, Von Kreuzburg bis Hollywood , Henschel 1975, p. 196.
  2. ↑ Burials of the City of Munich. In: trauer.sueddeutsche.de. Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2018, accessed on October 18, 2018.
  3. ^ Jürgen Schebera: Kurt Weill: An Illustrated Life , Yale University Press 1997, p. 200.
  4. ^ Foster Hirsch: Kurt Weill on stage: from Berlin to Broadway , Alfred A. Knopf 2002, p. 104. Likewise: Linda Feldman: Veteran Actress Is Far More Than a Survivor , in: Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1993.
  5. ↑ Linda Feldman: Veteran Actress Is Far More Than a Survivor , in: Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1993.
  6. ↑ a b The oldest citizen in the district celebrates her 107th birthday , ovb, May 16, 2018
  7. ^ Walter Wicclair, Von Kreuzburg bis Hollywood , Henschel 1975, pp. 195f.
  8. ^ Wicclair, Von Kreuzburg bis Hollywood , p. 196.
  9. ^ Brita Eckert, Werner Berthold: Goethe pictures of the German-speaking emigration 1933-1945 , p. 2000.
  10. ↑ Who's Who in the Arts and Literature , Vol. 2: Applied Arts and Music , Karl Strute and Theodor Doelken (Eds.), 3rd edition, Zurich: red series 1983, p. 536.
  11. ↑ Linda Feldman: Veteran Actress Is Far More Than a Survivor , in: Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1993.
personal data
SURNAME Riederer, Gert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riederer, Gertraud Ruthilde (full name); Riederer, Gert Ruthilde (nickname); McCann, Laura (pen name); Riederer-McCann, Gert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American theater actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 2018 or October 2018