Jenny Gross

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jenny Gross 1896

Jenny Groß ( September 5 between 1860 and 1863 in Szantho, today Andau , Burgenland , Austria; † May 8, 1904 in Berlin ) was an Austrian actress of Jewish descent.

Stage career

She was the youngest of six siblings and came to Vienna as a child, where she was discovered for the stage by Adolf von Sonnenthal at the age of 15 . Sonnenthal took the young wife to the Hofburg actress Caesarine Kupfer-Gomansky , who gave her acting lessons for a year. Her debut in Benedix 's comedy “Cinderella” at the Carltheater in Leopoldstadt was so successful that in 1878 she was signed by the theater's management.

In 1881 she moved to the Wiener Stadttheater (today's Ronacher ), where she appeared in front of the audience for the first time in a larger role in the Schwank "Eine Genussreise". After the fire in the Stadttheater on May 16, 1884, she was supposed to be hired at the Vienna Burgtheater , but the negotiations dragged on so that she finally gave preference to the Berliner Schauspielhaus , which had also taken care of the artist. On October 8, 1885, she celebrated a brilliant debut at her new place of work in Töpfer 's comedy “Der Beste Ton”. Within a very short time, Groß, who, with her charm and Viennese dialect, was the perfect cast for German and French comedies, rose to become a crowd favorite. In 1888 she was lured away from the Schauspielhaus by Oskar Blumenthal and hired for the newly founded Lessing Theater , to which she remained loyal until shortly before her death, even after she changed direction. On this stage, which with its modern equipment stood out pleasantly from the seemingly antiquated theater, the artist found the role that brought her talent to full development: As a cheerful salon lady, glamorous widow or flirting Kommerzienrat daughter of Blumenthal's stamp, she was in her element. In Anzengruber's "Kreuzlschreiber" she appeared for the first time in a dialect role. Even in classic roles, she proved the security of an actress who masters all genres.

But the role of her life was that of Madame Sans Gene by Victorien Sardou . The comedy, which premiered in Paris in 1893, depicts the rise of a simple Parisian laundress to become Duchess of Danzig, and was not only an artistic but also an enormous financial success for Groß. The enterprising artist and director Blumenthal succeeded in acquiring the translation and performance rights from the author of the play, so that every performance in German-speaking countries was subject to her approval. The rights holders had to buy this permit dearly and often the condition was attached to their placet to engage Groß for the main role. The artist appeared more than four hundred times in this role on stage, at the Lessing Theater and on her guest tours, in large and small theaters and at courts, in Dresden and Stuttgart, and success was certain everywhere.

In 1903, Groß left the Lessing Theater and joined the Residenz Theater (Dresden) , which she knew very well from the guest performances she regularly performed in February each year. Suddenly she was offered the role of Maria Theresa in Franz von Schönthan's comedy of the same name . The piece, peppered with lavish toilet pomp, Viennese dialect and solemn scenes, appealed to the artist so much that she terminated her contract with the Residenztheater for a substantial down payment in order to be free for this role. The play, to which the critics attested only a moderate quality, was performed on December 23, 1903 at the Berlin theater. The fact that the performance was a success was attributed solely to the splendid stage design and excellent performance by Jenny Groß. This ended her stage career.

Personal

Jenny Groß was a remarkable figure, who was endowed with an exuberant temperament and always found the right tone in her roles. Her popularity cannot be explained by her acting qualities alone, she was also the result of the all-outshining femininity with which she knew how to captivate men and women alike. The festive toilets, which she often changed several times during her performances, were an attraction in themselves. They were often topics of conversation for days. Since one expected the newest, the most modern, the most sensational with her, she was opinion-determining in questions of fashion.

Groß was repeatedly compared to Helene Odilon , with the latter being given the even better testimony in terms of artistic expression. In her private life she was an amiable, good-natured, cheerful companion who had a large circle of friends. Although she had spent a long time in Berlin, she was a well-known figure in her hometown of Vienna who had numerous relationships with Viennese society. She could boast of acquaintance with Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria-Tuscany (from 1889 Johann Orth) and King Milan of Serbia . One can only speculate about the quality of relationships with these high-ranking personalities.

In Berlin, the actress stayed with her sister Laura in a spacious apartment on Roonstrasse. She used to spend part of the summer in Bad Ischl, where she had bought a villa in 1902. She died at the clinic of Professor Landau's gynecologist, after an operation had previously been performed on her with apparently good results. On her deathbed, she ordered that her body be transferred to Vienna and buried in the central cemetery. The tombstone erected for them was designed by the sculptor Franz Vogl .

Afterlife

In an obituary for the deceased, the publicist and critic Maximilian Harden insinuated that the actress had gained all her wealth through her affairs, for which he was heavily criticized by Karl Kraus . At the funeral in Berlin, the Berliner Bühnenklub provoked a public scandal because the board of directors refused to put a wreath on the coffin of the deceased because of her allegedly immoral lifestyle. As a result, a discussion developed about hypocritical bourgeois moral concepts and the all too free manners in the theater business.

The artist's villa in Bad Ischl in the Dr. Höchsmann-Strasse 4, which was inherited by her sister Laura, came into the hands of the National Socialists in 1938. Laura Groß died in 1942 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Their heirs were able to get the villa back to themselves in 1950 via restitution and two years later sold it to the owner of a Viennese book printing company. Part of the splendid interior of the villa, including the actress' boudoir , was sold for a considerable amount at the 2006 art and antiques fair in the Vienna Hofburg and incorporated into a Swiss collection.

Varia

Groß had herself portrayed by the Hungarian-American portrait painter Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy as an 18-year-old young woman in the prime of her life. The Jewish painter Traute Steinthal made another portrait of her. When the artist was once asked by a journalist how she felt about the stage kiss, she replied with a wink: "If the author condemns me to kiss, I kiss, and not just for pretense."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brandeis University Libraries: Famous Israelite Men and Women in the Cultural History of Humanity - Life and Character Pictures from the Past and the Present . Leipzig-Reudnitz: AH Payne, 1900, p. 413 ( archive.org [accessed June 21, 2019]).
  2. ↑ ANNO, Neue Freie Presse, 1904-05-13, page 12. Accessed on June 21, 2019 .
  3. ↑ General Art Chronicle. January 1, 1895, p. 5.
  4. ↑ Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung. October 6, 1881, p. 577.
  5. ↑ Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Daily edition, January 29, 1885, p. 6.
  6. ↑ The press. January 14, 1890, p. 14.
  7. ↑ The first performance of Madame Sans Gene in Berlin took place on January 14, 1894. Proof: New free press. January 14, 1894, p. 7.
  8. ^ Peter W. Marx: Big capitalist in the stage realm: Jenny Gross. In: Paul Nolte (ed.): The entertainment culture of the big city - Places, Staging Networks 1880–1930. Böhlau, 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-22383-0 , pp. 99-109. See also: Theatrical memories from four decades of the German stage. In: Neues Wiener Journal. January 12, 1913, p. 6.
  9. ↑ Prager Tagblatt. June 24, 1903, p. 5.
  10. ↑ Illustrated Wiener Extrablatt. November 4, 1903, No. 303
  11. ^ Monday revue from Bohemia. December 28, 1903, p. 7.
  12. ↑ Czernowitzer Tagblatt. May 11, 1904, p. 3.
  13. ^ New Free Press. May 9, 1904, p. 9.
  14. ↑ Karl Kraus, collected essays. Volume 1 footnote on p. 246; see also above: Peter W. Marx: Big capitalist in the stage realm: Jenny Gross. 2016, p. 99.
  15. ^ New Vienna Journal. April 22, 1905, p. 8.
  16. ↑ A forgotten star: Jenny Gross. In: Maria Theres Arnbom: The villas of Bad Ischl. When houses tell stories. Amalthea Signum Verlag, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-99050-069-9 .
  17. ↑ Knowledge database of the main association of sworn and court-certified experts in Austria. widab.gerichts-sv.at /
personal data
SURNAME Big Jenny
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actress
DATE OF BIRTH September 5 between 1860 and 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Szantho , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1904
Place of death Berlin