Mia May

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Mia May, photograph (around 1922) by Alexander Binder
Mia May (around 1920)

Mia May , actually Hermine Pfleger , (born June 2, 1884 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † November 28, 1980 in Hollywood , USA ) was an Austrian silent film actress .

Life

Autograph by Mia May, 1922

She was the daughter of the baker Johann Pfleger and his wife Albine nee Steinfelder. She made her first appearance at the Jantsch Theater at the age of five and was often employed there in children's roles until she was 14. During her visit to the secondary school for daughters , she received ballet lessons from Madame Charlé . Her older sister Maria Pfleger (1879–1958), who appeared under the stage name Mitzi Telmont, was the second wife of the Viennese cabaret artist and comedian Heinrich Eisenbach .

She performed under her artist name at the time, Herma Angelot, on stages in Vienna such as the Apollo Theater as an actress and singer. In 1902 she married the later director and film producer Joe May and had their daughter Eva , who later also appeared as an actress in Joe May's productions.

Under the new artist name Mia May she went to Hamburg in 1911 to Wilhelm Bendiner's Neues Operettentheater, and her husband adopted her artist name for himself. In 1912 both settled in Berlin, where her husband had been hired as a film director. In the same year she appeared as the leading actress in her husband's first film In the depths of the shaft .

In the years that followed, her work in film was not limited to productions by Joe May. From 1916 she stylized Joe May, who had set up as a producer and director for himself in 1915, into one of the first divas of German film in a kind of Mia May series of melodramatic films.

She played leading roles in Fritz Lang's The Wandering Image (1920) and especially in the great Joe May productions Veritas vincit (1919), Die Herrin der Welt (1919), The Indian Tomb (1921) and Tragedy of Love (1923).

After the suicide of her daughter Eva May in 1924, she ended her acting career. She and her husband emigrated to the USA via France in 1933 . In 1949 she and her husband opened the Blue Danube restaurant in West Los Angeles , but it only lasted a short time.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Mia May  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME May, Mia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hermione Pfleger; Herma Angelot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian silent film actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1980
Place of death Hollywood