Mady Christians
Mady Christians (born January 19, 1896 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † October 28, 1951 in Norwalk , Connecticut ; born Margarethe Maria Christians ) was a German actress .
Life
The daughter of the actor Rudolf Christians (1869–1921) from the Frisian Jeverland and his wife, the opera singer Bertha Klein , moved with the family to Berlin in 1902. She attended business school and received acting lessons from Frank Reicher. She spent a significant part of her childhood in New York, where her father ran the German-language Irving Place Theater in Manhattan .
Soon she was playing first children's roles in the theater. She made her first film appearance in an American film, but after the USA entered the war in 1917 , she returned to Germany. She took on stage roles at Berlin theaters and was able to continue her career as a silent film actress. She first attracted attention in 1920/21 in the six-part The Man Without a Name at Harry Liedtke's side . She had further successes especially in 1925 in A Waltz Dream and in the two-part film adaptation of Queen Luise (1927).
Mady Christians had been with the journalist and writer Dr. Sven von Müller (1893–1964) married. In 1928 she founded the "Länder-Film GmbH" in Berlin with director Ludwig Berger , but it ceased its activities after 1931.
After coming to power of the Nazis, she emigrated to the United States. There she worked in several film and theater roles. In 1945 she became an acting teacher at Columbia University and was a member of the board of the American theater association. In 1950 the FBI accused her of being associated with the Communist Party (→ McCarthy era ).
Filmography (selection)
|
|
literature
- Alexandra Obradović (AOB): Mady Christians - actress , in CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film , vol. 29 (1997)
Web links
- Mady Christians in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Biography at www.cyranos
- Pictures from Mady Christians In: Virtual History
Individual evidence
- ↑ Date of birth verified and published in Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ..." Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria 1933 to 1945. A general overview. Acabus-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 123.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Christians, Mady |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Christians, Marguerita Maria (maiden name); Christians, Margarete (other name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 19, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 28, 1951 |
| Place of death | Norwalk , Connecticut , United States |