Helene Thimig

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Bust of Helene Thimig in Strobl , where she regularly stayed between 1947 and 1970
Helene Thimig in Reinhard Sorges The Beggar , 1917

Helene Ottilie Thimig-Reinhardt , pseudonym Helene Werner ; married Thimig-Reinhardt , divorced Kalbeck (born June 5, 1889 in Vienna ; † November 7, 1974 there ) was an Austrian actress , director and theater director .

Life

Helene Thimig was the daughter of the later Burgtheater director Hugo Thimig and his wife Franziska geb. Hummel (1867-1944). Her two brothers Hermann and Hans Thimig also became actors. After elementary school and the Lyceum Luithlen she took acting lessons with Hedwig Bleibtreu . On November 12, 1907, she had her first appearance as Marthe in Edouard Pailleron's Die Maus in the Baden City Theater .

In 1908 she was Melissa in Franz Grillparzer's Sappho at the Goethe Festival in Düsseldorf, after which she acted at the court theater in Meiningen , and from 1911 to 1917 at the Royal Theater in Berlin. In 1917 she got an engagement at the Berlin Deutsches Theater , where she made her debut on October 10th as Elsalil in Gerhart Hauptmann's winter ballad . From the beginning a close cooperation and love relationship developed with the director of the theater Max Reinhardt , who was married to the actress Else Heims (1878-1958) and had two sons with her. Thimig was married from 1916 to 1918 to the director Paul Kalbeck , from whom she divorced (as she called it) "out of purity of soul".

When Reinhardt was ostracized after the Nazis came to power in 1933 , Thimig's successful Berlin stage career also came to an end. She followed Reinhardt to Vienna and appeared in the theater in der Josefstadt, which he directed . Further appearances followed in Prague and at the Salzburg Festival . Thimig followed Reinhardt to various productions in several European countries and after his divorce married him in May 1935 during a guest performance in the USA . At the end of October 1937 she finally followed Reinhardt into his American exile. Since she learned the English language slowly, she received only very small roles in American theater and film productions for a long time. Between 1942 and 1947 she took part in 18 Hollywood films in which she mostly portrayed German women. Max Reinhardt died on October 31, 1943.

After the end of the Second World War, Thimig-Reinhardt moved back to Austria and became a member of the Burgtheater , where she was awarded the honorary title of chamber actress in 1950 . In 1948 she married the Austrian actor Anton Edthofer for the third time.

From 1947 to 1951 she directed Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann at the Salzburg Festival and from 1948 to 1954 she directed the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna . In addition, she took on a teaching position as a professor at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts .

In the German-language film, however, she received only a few tasks. After leaving the Burgtheater ensemble, in 1954 she once again accepted a permanent position at the Theater in der Josefstadt . From 1963 to 1968 she staged Jedermann again at the Salzburg Festival. At the end of March 1974 she was on stage for the last time in Josefstadt.

First burial site in 1974 in the urn wall of the Simmering fire hall in Vienna
Grave in the Neustift cemetery since 2015

In November 1974 Helene Thimig-Reinhardt died of a pulmonary embolism. She was cremated in the Simmering fire hall and buried in an honorary urn niche (Linke Arkaden, grave 152). On June 17, 2015, the urn was moved to an honorary grave in the Neustift cemetery (group N, row 10, grave 69).

In 2016, the Helene-Thimig-Weg in Vienna- Liesing (23rd district) was named after her.

Prizes and awards

Filmography

literature

  • Eva Bakos : Brilliant couples. Artist between work and passion. Ueberreuter, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-8000-3876-5 . (In it: magic and angelic rigor. Max Reinhardt and Helene Thimig , pp. 75–109.)
  • Helene Thimig , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 09/1975 from February 17, 1975, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 505 f., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Web links

Commons : Helene Thimig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Little Chronicle. (…) Max Reinhardt's and Helene Thimig's marriage ceremony .. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt (No. 25381 A / 1935), May 10, 1935, p. 2, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp
  2. ↑ friedhoefewien.at: Grave sites dedicated to honor or taken into custody in the cemetery Feuerhalle Simmering ( PDF )
  3. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Helene Thimig
  4. ↑ Awards. In:  Salzburger Chronik , August 17, 1936, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / sch
  5. ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence , December 22, 1953, sheet 2102.
  6. ↑ Vienna City Hall Correspondence, January 16, 1954, sheet 67.
personal data
SURNAME Thimig, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thimig-Reinhardt, Helene Ottilie (full name); Thimig, Helene Ottilie (maiden name); Werner, Helene (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH November 7th 1974
Place of death Vienna , Austria