Lilli Can

Lilli Kann , mostly Lily Kann in Great Britain (born October 20, 1893 in Peitz as Lilli Hertha Kann ; † November 2, 1978 in Horsham ) was a German actress in British film.

Live and act

Lilli Hertha Kann, who comes from the Spreewald, received her artistic training at the Prussian State Theater in Berlin and began her stage career at the age of 17. In the period that followed, the young artist performed at venues in Lübeck , Düsseldorf , Darmstadt , Frankfurt am Main , Berlin and most recently (1931–33) at the Neues Schauspielhaus in Königsberg in East Prussia .

With the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, the Jewish Lilli was excluded Can the German cultural scene and entered then the Jewish Cultural Association in Berlin and the Rhine / Ruhr. In the last year of peace in 1939, the artist fled to England , where she initially found employment in the theater. For example, you saw her in 1940 in the cabaret revue What's in the newspaper? as well as in the pieces My Dear Son (also 1940) and Awake and Sing! (1942). On December 5, 1943, she performed recitations of Goethe poems at a commemoration of the Free German Cultural Association in London's Wigmore Hall on the occasion of the death of Max Reinhardt .

In the late phase of the Second World War , the emigrant, who had meanwhile Anglicized her first name from Lilli to Lily , was brought in front of the camera for the first time. Until the late 1950s, she was in demand as a supporting actress in a number of entertainment films, some of which were quite prominent, including some anti-Nazi propaganda strips. Lily Kann covered the entire range of roles of the classic batch: she played a peasant woman in The Flemish Farm , a baroness in The Swindler , a concierge in Her Last Dance , Queen Charlotte in Mrs. Fitzherbert and a cleaning lady in the international production Five Girls and One Man . Lily Kann also appeared in two US productions made in Europe shortly after the end of World War II: she was seen as the innkeeper in Howard Hawks ' tumultuous Cary Grant comedy I Was a Male War Bride and as a grandmother in the resistance fighter drama Betrayed with Clark Gable .

Since the mid-1950s, Lilli / Lily Kann also worked extensively on British television.

Filmography

• 1943: Escape to Danger
• 1943: The Flemish Farm
• 1945: Latin Quarter
• 1946: Her Last Dance (Woman to Woman)
• 1947: Mrs. Fitzherbert
• 1947: Symbol of luck (The White Unicorn)
• 1947: The Woman in the Hall
• 1948: I Was a Male War Bride (I Was a Male War Bride)
• 1950: On the wrong track (The Clouded Yellow)
• 1950: Flesh and Blood
• 1951: Five Girls and One Man (A Tale of Five Cities)
• 1952: Twice Upon a Time
• 1952: At the street corner (Street Corner)
• 1953: A Day to Remember
• 1953: Background
• 1953: Eight O'Clock Walk
• 1954: Betrayed ( Betrayed )
• 1954: Life is full of wonder (A Kid for Two Farthings)
• 1955: Adeline Girard (TV)
• 1955: The Fifth Column (Foreign Intrigue)
• 1957: The Night of the Strangler (Cat Girl)
• 1958: Hunted (Nowhere to Go)
• 1958: No Trees in the Streets
• 1959: The Black Lorelei (Whirlpool)
• 1959: The House of the Seven Hawks
• 1961: The Long Shadow
• 1965: Enter Solly Gold (TV)

literature

• Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 200.

Web links

• Lily Can the Internet Movie Database (English)