Helene Odilon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helene Odilon, 1900
From Sport & Salon , Vienna, March 14, 1903
Helene Odilon. Bust of Viktor Tilgner in the Volkstheater Vienna

Helene Odilon , actually Petermann (born July 31, 1863 in Dresden , † February 9, 1939 in Baden near Vienna ) was a German-Austrian actress.

life and work

Helene Odilon was born as Helene Petermann in Dresden. Her father CA Petermann traded in white goods and had two older sons. Helene Odilon began her career in Chemnitz , was committed to the court theater in Berlin at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm I and went to Vienna in 1891 . She was considered one of the most interesting actresses of her time and was also celebrated in England and in 1902 even in the USA. At the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, to which she belonged for 13 years, she played Madame Dubarry (in Du Barry by David Belasco ) and Madame Sans-Gêne (in the play of the same name by Victorien Sardou ), which was considered by some to be her star role . Hermann Bahr (1863–1934) was inspired by her to play the role of Lona Ladinser in his three-act play The Star (1898), which subsequently became one of her greatest successes.

In 1893 she got an unhappy marriage to the actor Alexander Girardi (1850-1918). Helene had quite a few lovers, and Girardi was jealous. She tried to incapacitate him and, with the help of a courtesy report from her psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940), deported him to a mental institution; with the support of Katharina Schratt (1853-1940) Girardi was rehabilitated. Helene divorced him in 1896. Her second marriage was with the Hungarian landowner Franz von Rakovszky (approx. 1877–1907). After his death she married the pharmacist Bela von Pecic (* 1871).

At the end of November 1903, at the height of her popularity, Odilon suffered a stroke as Nora before performing in Innsbruck , and was partially prevented from moving on one side. During her convalescence she suffered from severe depression and was subsequently “because it did not seem advisable to leave Ms. Odilon the right of disposal over her considerable property” - which amounted to half a million crowns, her house in Neustiftgasse and its “precious facility “ Was assessed - placed under guardianship at the instigation of her relatives. She fought against these legally for years. To prove her undiminished intellectual power, she wrote the autobiography The Book of an Idiot in 1909 , which met with great interest, but received nothing as an author.

In 1916 Odilon went blind and, "exploited by unscrupulous people to shamefully brought their last belongings", she was forced to beg, "offered postcards to buy in inns with the picture of Odilon limping around."

On November 30, 1920, Hermann Bahr found her in the asylum (old people's home) of the Äußere Riedenburg in Salzburg , where she lived in modest circumstances. Bahr reported on this in his Diary column in the Neue Wiener Journal and in this way warned the German Volkstheater to remember the woman it had lived on for about ten years. In the following year the management of the Deutsches Volkstheater decided to dedicate the proceeds of a night performance to Helene Odilon.

In 1925 Odilon lived in the Christian hospice in her native Dresden, where she had returned from Salzburg.

Honorary grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery

The sixty-year-old described in 1925 as “poor, bitter beggarly, brest-like, paralyzed, deprived of the full use of language and one hand” was accepted on January 5, 1928 in the one founded by the benefactor Henriette Weiß (1864–1931) on the 12th Monthly opened Baden retirement home "Carefree". This was made possible by an honorary salary from the municipality of Vienna, a pension of 30 schillings (today approx. 70 euros) a month from the German People's Theater and 134 schillings (today approx. 300 euros) annual pension from the German stage association in Berlin. In the following years she was repeatedly visited by her former stage colleague and "old friend" Adele Sandrock (1863-1937).

Helene Odilon succumbed to a stroke at the age of 74, "freed from a shadowy existence by four decades too late (...)." She rests in Vienna's central cemetery . The grave was taken into the care of the City of Vienna in February 1942 by order of City Councilor Hanns Blaschke ( honorary grave , group 12 D, row 1, no. 23). The agency responsible for burial, Friedhöfe Wien GmbH , lists Helene Odilon as Helene Girardi-Odillon ( sic! ).

Works

  • Helene von Pecic: The book of an imbecile. Memoirs of Helene Odilon (pseud.) Walther, Berlin 1909, OBV .
  • Helene Odilon: The laughing world misery . In: Neues Wiener Journal , July 31, 1921, No. 9961/1921 (XXIX. Volume), p. 7. (About her life situation; on p. 5. Hermann Bahr's diary about her).
  • Helene Odilon: Panacea - Auto-suggestion according to Coué . Graphi, Salzburg 1925, OBV .
  • Helene von Pecic: The secret of the success of Helene Odilon (pseud.) Pichl, Vienna undated , OBV .

literature

  • Dorotheum. Auction of antique and modern furniture (Bechstein wing) ... from the property of the actress Helene Odilon and from other private property (etc.) Dorotheum, Vienna 1914, OBV .
  • Heinrich Glücksmann: reunion with Helene Odilon . In: Neues Wiener Journal , No. 11756/1926 (XXXIV. Volume), August 15, 1926, p. 8.
  • E (dgar) Marktl:  Petermann Helene. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 7, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 443 f. (Direct links on p. 443 , p. 444 ).
  • Georg Markus : Katharina Schratt - the secret wife of the emperor . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main (among others) 1988, ISBN 3-548-20987-4 .
  • Odilon, Helene . (Press reviews). Tagblattarchiv, 1893–1988. (28 sheets). OBV .
  • Robert S. Budig (among others): Graves of honor at the Vienna Central Cemetery . Compress Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-900607-26-5 .
  • Renate Wagner : You are at home with great daughters - important women and their history. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-8000-3631-2 .
  • Eva Bakos : Fateful Affairs: Famous Couples Between Power and Love . Ueberreuter, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-8000-3796-3 .
  • Margarete Grandner, Ulrike Harmat: In love to a limited extent - legal barriers to marriage and the border between Austria and Hungary. In: Ingrid Bauer (Ed.): Love and Resistance. Ambivalences in historical gender relations . Böhlau, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-205-77374-8 , pp. 287-304.

Filmography

  • 1914: After the premiere

Honors

In 2007 the Helene-Odilon-Gasse in Vienna-Penzing (14th district of Vienna ) was named after her.

Play
  • Sylvia Eisenberger: My Girardi. Marriage madness . Premiere on December 2, 2000.

Web links

Commons : Helene Odilon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gudrun Wdel: Autobiographies of women - A lexicon. Böhlau-Verlag 2010, p. 619.
  2. ↑ Anton Holzer: Sex, Lies, Insanity: The Story of Helene Odilon. In: FAZ , January 4, 2011.
  3. ^ Illness of Mrs. Odilon. In:  Neue Freie Presse , November 27, 1903, p. 28 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfpas well as
    the illness of Mrs. Odilon .. In:  Neue Freie Presse , November 28, 1903, p. 8 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  4. ↑ Little Chronicle. (Helene Odilon.). In:  Neue Freie Presse , December 2, 1904, p. 7 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  5. ↑ a b c Willy Preißler:  Helene Odilon .. In:  Badener Zeitung , May 11, 1932, p. 1 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  6. ↑ a b c Fritz Ahrensfeldt:  Die Odilon .. In:  Neue Freie Presse , August 2, 1925, p. 11, top right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  7. ^ Hermann Bahr: Salzburg, November 30th [1920] . In: -: Critique of the Present . Haas & Grabherr, Augsburg 1922, pp. 287–289. - text online .
  8. ^ Raoul Auernheimer :  Feuilleton. The distressed Helene Odilon .. In:  Neue Freie Presse , June 19, 1921, p. 1 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  9. ↑ Helene Odilon-Girardi (...). In:  Badener Zeitung , July 11, 1925, p. 6 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  10. ↑ Daily report. (...) Henriette Weiß, the founder of the old people's home “Haus Sorgefrei”, died. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 77/1931 (Volume II), September 26, 1931, p. 3 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  11. ↑ Local. (...) The new old people's home. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 3/1928 (XLIX. Volume), January 11, 1928, p. 2, center right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bztas well as
    local. (...) Opening of the local old people's home “Worry-Free”. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 4/1928 (XLIX. Volume), January 14, 1928, p. 2 f. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  12. ↑ Helene Odilon in Baden. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 3/1928 (XLIX. Volume), January 11, 1928, p. 3 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  13. ↑ a b Helene Odilon in Baden. In:  Die Neue Zeitung , January 9, 1928, p. 2 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nzg.
  14. ↑ Baden city news. (...) Helene Odilon died. In:  Badener Zeitung , No. 12/1939 (LX. Year), February 11, 1939, p. 4, bottom left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / bzt.
  15. ↑ Theater and Art. Helene Odilon died. In:  Wiener Zeitung , February 10, 1939, p. 7 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz.
  16. ↑ Daily report. (...) The city looks after Helene Odilon's grave. In:  Neues Wiener Tagblatt , No. 38/1942 (LXXVI. Year), February 7, 1942, p. 3 (unpaginated), center right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwg.
  17. ↑ Hedwig Abraham (Red.): Helene Odilon . In: viennatouristguide.at , accessed on April 9, 2013.
  18. ↑ Grave sites dedicated or taken into custody on account of honor , (PDF; 1 MB) , p. 32 (unpaginated) In: friedhoefewien.at , (status :) April 2015, accessed on November 9, 2015.
  19. ↑ Anton Holzer: Sex, Lies, Insanity: The Story of Helene Odilon . In: faz.net , January 5, 2011, accessed April 9, 2013.

Remarks

  1. ^ Year of birth according to the catalog of the German National Library; other sources write in 1864 or 1865.
  2. ↑ Bahr reports on the moment of the sudden inspiration . - See: Daily News. From the playwright's workshop. Confessions and self-contemplations. A survey by the “New Vienna Journal”. (...) Hermann Bahr (Vienna). In:  Neues Wiener Journal , April 2, 1899, p. 3 f. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwj.
  3. ↑ At the address Kaiser-Franz-Ring 27 there has been a building of the social insurance institution for the commercial economy (which was built in the years before 2012) for decades .
personal data
SURNAME Odilon, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petermann, Helene (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian actress
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1939
Place of death Baden near Vienna