Ruth Geller

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Ruth Geller (born October 16, 1923 in Chemnitz , then German Empire ) is an Israeli actress of German origin.

Life

Origin and family

Ruth Geller was born as the daughter of the merchant Mendel (called “Max”) Geller (d. 1961) and his wife Margarethe (called “Gretel”) Paula Geller, née. Götz (1897–1963) born. The maternal family came from Penig in Saxony . Geller's grandfather and great-grandfather were school teachers there . Max Geller's family lived in Galicia ; he himself came to Germany as a boy without a family. In his youth he had been trained as a machinist .

In September 1920, Geller's parents married and moved into an apartment at Heinrich-Beck-Strasse 7 in Chemnitz. Their four surviving children were born there: the eldest daughter Brigitte Ingeborg (born 1922, called "Ingele"), Ruth (born 1923), Edith (born 1925) and Richard Bernhard (born 1928). The daughter Edith died as an infant at the age of almost three months in the state women's clinic and was buried without naming in the children's grave department at the Jewish cemetery in Chemnitz.

Max Geller was the owner of a small hosiery and knitwear factory that had been registered in the commercial register under the name “Max Geller & Co” since 1920. After the company's insolvency, he took over the commercial agency for a game and poultry wholesaler . Max Geller sang in the synagogue choir . The family only visited the synagogue on high Jewish holidays. His two sisters, his brother-in-law and their children were murdered during the Holocaust .

Childhood and youth

Ruth Geller first attended elementary school on Heinrich-Beck-Strasse, very close to her parents' house; she went to the Jewish community for religious instruction. After elementary school she briefly switched to the secondary girls' school in Reitbahnstraße, but then went back to elementary school because the family could only finance the eldest daughter's higher education. She received her first music lessons from her musical mother, who played the piano and accompanied herself to songs by Schubert , Brahms and Hugo Wolf . From the age of 8 she received piano lessons.

In August 1935 Ruth Geller immigrated with her family via Trieste on the ship route to Palestine , where the family settled in Haifa . Max Geller started his own business there as a road construction entrepreneur . After a few months in the hotel, the family moved to Bat Galim . In Israel, Ruth Geller occasionally attended an elementary school in the Bat Galim district, but left it without a degree. She worked as a housekeeper, nanny and saleswoman in a wool shop in Haifa. Before the beginning of the Second World War , the Geller family lived in Kirjat Motzkin after several moves . At the age of 17, Ruth Geller left her parents' home and moved to Tel-Aviv , where she kept herself afloat with various jobs ( babysitting , domestic help and service). From 1943 Tel Aviv was her permanent residence.

Artistic beginnings

From the age of 16 she received piano lessons in Haifa from the Israeli composer and pianist Frank Pelleg , who taught there twice a week. Pelleg also found her piano students. For the first time, Geller appeared in public at school concerts. In the early 1940s she was hired by Pelleg as a pianist for the stage orchestra at the Chamber Theater in Tel-Aviv. Gertrud Kraus (1901–1977), a representative of modern dance in Israel, later hired her as a pianist for her dance ensemble. For many years she was also the pianist of the dancer Hilde Kesten .

According to his own account, Geller made her debut as an actress in Molière's comedy Monsieur de Poursoniaque in 1945 . During the Israeli War of Independence , she was used in troop support. After the end of the war, she received another engagement at the Chamber Theater in Tel-Aviv, as a pianist with an acting engagement. She played there first in Ever since Paradise by JB Priestley , a play about three couples. Then, in 1950, she received a role in Blyth Spirit of Noël Coward , where she, a naive maid that when Edith medium acts embodied.

Theater career

From 1951 to 1952 she studied acting at the EPJD (Éducation Par le Jeu Dramatique) in Paris . From 1955 Ruth Geller got engagements at all theaters in Israel and in the following years she became a successful stage actress in Israel, where she especially advocated modern plays ( Ionesco , Beckett ).

In 1956 she appeared at the Sirah Theater in Tel-Aviv in the title role of the Ionesco play The Bald Singer . In 1957 she played there in the play The Journey of Mr. Perichon by Eugène Labiche . In the 1956/57 season she appeared at the German-language theater "Hagescher" in the play Der Torero-Waltzer by Jean Anouilh .

In 1961 she played the role of Lucky in Waiting for Godot at the Bavuʾot Theater in Tel-Aviv, which she also took on in other productions (including 1969). In 1971 she played the title role in Bernarda Alba's house at the Chan Theater in Jerusalem . In 1983 she appeared at the Tel-Aviv Chamber Theater in The Suitcase Packer , a play by the Israeli playwright Chanoch Levin (1943–1999); with this production she received an invitation to the Edinburgh Festival and to Paris. In 1986, she played at the Habima Theater in the kitchen of Arnold Wesker ; that same year she appeared in Ariel Dorfman's Widows at the Akko City Festival . Geller's stage career lasted a very long time; In 2003 she played Rebecca Nurse in The Crucible at the Haifa City Theater.

In 2010 she received the award for "Best Actress in a Leading Role" from the International Association of Theater for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ).

Movie and TV

Since the 1970s, Geller has occasionally been in front of the camera. She worked for film and television. In the Israeli drama The Wind of the Desert (1982), which thematizes the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Galilee , she played the role of Malka. In the two-part German television film Schalom, Meine Liebe , produced by Hessischer Rundfunk and filmed in Frankfurt am Main and Israel from February 1997 , she was partner of Dominique Horwitz (as Ron) and Buddy Elias . She embodied the “Bubbe” Hanna, Ron's grandmother, an elderly woman who opposed the connection that her grandson made with a Christian in Germany, with the words: “A chic in our family! And did we survive Hitler for that ? ”Resists. It was first broadcast on Christmas 1998.

From the 2000s, Geller made an aging career in the Israeli film business. In the cinema and television she played numerous old women and grandmothers, with the most diverse facets. She portrayed the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the Israeli television film Das Schweigen der Sirenen (2003), which dealt with the Yom Kippur War . In the 2004 historical war drama based on the fictional character Fishke der Krumer (by Mendele Moicher Sforim ) King of Beggars by director Uri Paster , which was released in 2007, she was the old woman Hava.

In the German-Israeli co-production Hannas Reise (2013) she was Lia Koenig 's Fanny partner as a retirement home resident . In the Israeli movie At the End of a Celebration (2014) she played the senior citizen Zelda, in whom her cancer has returned; She is called by "God" (behind whom the 71-year-old inventor Yehezkel, who changes his voice via a reverb mechanism, is), who not only wants to take away her fear of dying, but also tells her that there is currently no room in heaven for her. At the end of a festival is considered one of the most successful films in Israel. The film, a “wonderfully mischievous comedy about love, friendship and saying goodbye”, was shown for the first time in Germany at the 48th Hof International Film Festival 2014 . In 2014 he received the Audience Award at the Venice International Film Festival and received several awards at the 21st Jewish Film Festival Berlin-Brandenburg in 2015, for the best director and the best Israeli film as well as the Gershon Klein Prize.

In the short film HaDiktator HaKatan (2015) she played the grandmother Gerda, a Holocaust survivor, whose 90th birthday is celebrating a big family celebration. In the German-Israeli TV production Herbe Mix (2015), filmed in three languages ​​(German, English, New Hebrew ) , Ruth Geller, alongside Trystan Pütter and Peri Baumeister , embodied the initially mute, German-born grandmother who at the end of the Films finds her language again and reveals the family secret.

Personal and family

In the early 1950s Geller married the German-born clarinetist and orchestral musician Klaus Kochmann (1920–2005), the son of the Jewish pediatrician Dr. Rudolf Kochmann. Kochmann played in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and joined a. a. together with Leonard Bernstein . The marriage ended in divorce after 24 years in the mid-1970s. Geller is the mother of a daughter who came from an extramarital relationship with Israeli director Michael Almaz .

In addition to her work as an actress, Ruth Geller studied six years at Tel Aviv University (Everyman's University) in the 1980s and did a bachelor's degree in literature and Jewish history. At the age of 65 she began her master’s degree , which she completed with a master’s degree in Jewish history. Her master's thesis, comprising about 200 pages, dealt with the ideas of the German Jewish intelligentsia about Spain and its Judaism, and analyzed a. a. Heinrich Heine , Leopold Zunz , as well as Ludwig and Phöbus Moses Philippson . She then studied for two years philosophy ; Due to various engagements, however, she no longer found the time to finish this course.

In the summer of 1988 Ruth Geller visited her native Germany with her daughter. Via Frankfurt am Main she traveled by train to the Eastern Zone , with stops in Dresden , Radebeul and finally her hometown of Chemnitz. In 2001 Ruth Geller took part in the “10. Days of Jewish Culture ”in her native Chemnitz. She lives in Ramat Aviv .

Ruth Geller's older sister Ingeborg learned English shorthand and found a job as a secretary for a British company. In 1946 she married Abraham Dana, a Sephardic Jew who came from Egypt , worked as a lift boy in the same company as she and was later promoted to a supplier there. She died as Bracha Dana in 1981 of cancer. Ruth Geller's younger brother Bernhard, who called himself Baruch in Israel, lives in Haifa. He became a seaman and later a chief engineer in shipbuilding. He married Naomi Simroni in 1958. The marriages of the Geller siblings resulted in six adult children.

Filmography

  • 1977: Mivtsa Yonatan (movie, Israel)
  • 1982: The Wind of the Desert ( Chamsim , movie, Israel)
  • 1994: The Kastner Trial (TV miniseries, Israel)
  • 1998: Schalom, Meine Liebe (TV movie, Germany)
  • 2003: The Silence of the Sirens ( Shtikat HaTzofarim , TV movie, Israel)
  • 2007: King of Beggars ( Melech Shel Kabzanim , movie, Israel)
  • 2010: Hitpartzut X (feature film, Israel)
  • 2011: Boker Tov Adon Fidelman (feature film, Israel)
  • 2011: Hanna's Garden ( Emek Tifferet , movie, Israel)
  • 2011: Sabri Maranan (TV series, Israel)
  • 2012: 30 Shakh LeSha'a (TV series, Israel)
  • 2012–2016: Yom Haem (TV series, Israel)
  • 2013: Ptzuim BaRosh (TV series, Israel)
  • 2013: Hannas Reise (feature film, Germany / Israel)
  • 2013–2015: Shtisel (TV series, Israel)
  • 2014: At the end of a party ( Mita Tova , movie, Israel)
  • 2015: HaDiktator HaKatan (short film, Israel)
  • 2015: Herbe Mixture ( A Bitter Mix , TV film, Germany / Israel)
  • 2017: Before Memory (Movie, Israel)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruth Geller . Entry in the Internet Movie Database . Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Nitsche, Ruth Röcher: Jews in Chemnitz: The history of the community and the Jewish cemetery . Sandstone publishing house. 2002. There in particular from page 370ff. ISBN 978-3-930-38266-8 .
  3. ↑ The publishing house Hentrich & Hentrich , in which Ruth Geller's autobiography was published in 2015 , gives 1924 as the “rounded” year of birth.
  4. ↑ a b Tart mixture . Television review. In: Hamburger Abendblatt of November 4, 2015. Accessed January 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Ruth Geller . Biography. Official website of the Hentrich & Hentrich publishing house . Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  6. ^ Shimon Levy: Godot, an Israeli Critic . In: Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui . Volume 29. Issue 2. pages 312 - 324. 2017. Quote: "The second production of Waiting for Godot took place in 1961 in Tel Aviv by Bavuʾot Theater as another fringe performance, receiving little critical attention."
  7. ↑ Hamsin - The wind of the desert . Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  8. ↑ Shalom, my love . TV feature film . Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  9. ↑ SHALOM, MY LOVE . Photo. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  10. ↑ King of Beggars . Entry in the Israel Film Database. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  11. ↑ a b c d At the end a party . Movie review. Sunday news Herne. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  12. ↑ A festival at the end (Sharon Maymon, Tal Granit) . Movie review. Sunday news Herne. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  13. ↑ Double film screening: "Hadiktator hakatan" ("The little dictator") AND "Herr Israel" ("Hans in Luck") . Event notice. Israelite community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Hadiktator Hakatan" ( "The Little Dictator") & "Mr. Israel" ( "Hans in Luck") . Event notice. Jewish Museum Munich. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  15. ↑ FEATURE FILM IN THE FIRST: Don't tell anyone what your real name is TV review. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 4, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Geller, Ruth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz , Saxony, then German Empire