Natascha Lytess

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Natascha Lytess (* 1915 as Natalia Postmann in Berlin ; † May 12, 1963 in Zurich , Switzerland ) was a German-American film actress , author and acting teacher. She also used the name Tala Forman . She became known as a longtime private teacher and mentor to actress Marilyn Monroe .

life and career

Natascha Lytess studied with the director Max Reinhardt , whom she admired, and was a member of his acting troupe in Berlin and Vienna . When the National Socialists came to power, the Jewish woman moved to the USA and, like many other actors, settled in Los Angeles . In later years she is said to have claimed that she was the widow of the writer Bruno Frank , who also fled the Nazis to the USA and died in Beverly Hills in 1945 . Frank is also the father of her daughter Barbara, who was born in 1943. However, Bruno Frank was married to Liesl Frank. Maybe she was Frank's lover.

During the Second World War she received small roles in two Hollywood films and worked as an acting teacher with the contract actors of Samuel Goldwyn , later for the film production company Columbia Pictures . She had hoped for a big stage career, but her accent and her not very feminine appearance limited the roles she could play. Until 1961 she was cast as a supporting actress. She played her best-known roles in the films Comrade X (1940), Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).

From 1948 to 1955 she was Marilyn Monroe's private tutor at Columbia Pictures. She was the first person in authority to believe in Monroe's abilities. It nurtured their intellectual curiosity and encouraged them in their ambitions to play more complex roles with greater depth. Lytess stood up for her and gave her her first big appearance in the summer of 1948 in the B-movie I dance in your heart . For the main role in this musical film , her student was first mentioned in the industry journal Motion Picture Herald . After 1951 she was always by her side. The two women were also close friends in private life. Natascha Lytess had a hopeless love for Marilyn Monroe and had a lesbian relationship with her when she was in her early twenties. Other well-known students of hers were Mamie van Doren , Virginia Leith and Ann Savage .

Natasha Lytess died in 1963 in Switzerland to cancer . She was portrayed by Lindsay Crouse in Marilyn - Your Life and by Embeth Davidtz in The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe .

Filmography

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ In some publications about Natascha Lytess the birthday and place of birth are given: May 16, 1911 in Yekaterinoslaw, Yekaterinoslaw Gouvernement , Russian Empire , today Dnipro , Ukraine . Donald Spoto writes in his biography about Marilyn Monroe that she gave the immigration authorities in the USA Russia instead of Berlin as her place of birth in order to avoid anti-German resentment. See: Donald Spoto: Marilyn Monroe. The biography . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1993, p. 135. There are also different information about the year of birth and death.
    The English spelling of her first name is Natasha .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All results for Natascha Lytess. In: Ancestry. Retrieved February 27, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Donald Spoto: Marilyn Monroe. The biography . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag , Munich 1993, ISBN 3-453-06919-6 , p. 135.
  3. ↑ Personal papers . Liesl Frank-Mittler. In: Literaturportal Bayern. Retrieved March 3, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Lois Banner: Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox . Bloomsbury, London 2012, ISBN 978-1608197675 , p. 146.
  5. ↑ Donald Spoto: Marilyn Monroe. The biography . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1993, pp. 135-136.
  6. ↑ Natasha Lytess. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved March 4, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Maurice Zolotow: Marilyn Monroe . Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York 1960, Library of Congres Catalog Card Number 60-10934, pp. 63-69.
  8. ↑ Donald Spoto: Marilyn Monroe. The biography . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1993, pp. 134-138.
  9. ↑ David Gardner: Marilyn Monroe 'had a lesbian affair with her drama teacher Natasha Lytess' and lived together 'as man and wife'. In: Mail Online . September 8, 2014, accessed February 24, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Lytess, Natascha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Postmann, Natalia (maiden name); Forman, Tala
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American film actress, author and acting teacher
DATE OF BIRTH 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1963
Place of death Zurich , Switzerland