Sylvie Winter

Sylvie Winter , later also called Gaya , (born August 12, 1945 in Teplitz-Schönau , Czechoslovakia ) is a former German photo model , she also worked briefly as an actress in film and television in the first half of the 1970s .

Live and act

As a photo model

Sylvie Winter was born in the newly reborn Czechoslovakia. Shortly afterwards, she and her family of German descent were expelled by Czechs and ended up in a reception camp in Salzburg in 1946 . The family then settled in Berchtesgaden , where little Sylvie spent her childhood. In 1961 she won second prize in the " Schwabinchen " election of the Munich evening newspaper . Then Sylvie Winter tried her hand at theater in Berchtesgaden for three years. In 1966 the attractive young artist switched to the modeling business and settled in Frankfurt am Main . After three years she returned to Munich in 1969back. During these years you saw Sylvie Winter, often topless, on various newspaper covers, including seven star titles . Bookings regularly took her to New York (for the Ford Models agency ), but she was also hired for publications in Paris, London and Milan.

As an actress in front of the camera

In May 1969 Sylvie Winter, who has long been used to photo cameras, stepped in front of a film camera for the first time when she played the second female leading role of Luba in Thomas Schamoni's production A large gray-blue bird . The main role was played by Klaus Lemke , whose "muse" and temporary partner Winter was to become at the beginning of the new decade. In 1971 he gave her the female lead in his production Love, as beautiful as love and in the following year placed her as the sole protagonist in the center of the cinematic quasi-portrait Sylvie, with which she made it big. Just another year later, in 1974, Sylvie Winter, exhausted by the hype surrounding her, turned completely away from acting and left Germany.

The later years

Sylvie Winter first went to Italy with her partner at the time, where Guido Mangold photographed her again for “Stern”. Like numerous other young people of those years (for example her colleague Eva Renzi ), Winter then went on a kind of spiritual search for meaning, joined the movement of the Indian Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for five years and received the new sannyasin name "Gayan" there .

In 1985 Sylvie "Gayan" Winter moved to Santa Fé in the US state of New Mexico . There she rented a house made of wood and glass on a mountain around 2,700 meters above sea level and began to write. In addition, she gave interviews on radio and television.

According to her own statement, Sylvie Winter tried to strengthen the self-worth and self-confidence of women as a book author (works like “ Tarot for Women ”) and in workshops and immersed herself in the Indian culture of the region. In 2007 her last work followed with “ Find my power animal ”. In that year Sylvie Winter fell ill with cancer, but was successfully treated. The “Mystic Journeys” organized by Winter in New Mexico are tours with Europeans that take them into the wilderness for meditation and powwows in the Indian reservations of the American Southwest.

Filmography (complete)

• 1970: A large gray-blue bird
• 1970: My beautiful short life
• 1971: love, as beautiful as love
• 1973: Sylvie
• 1974: The later the evening (talk show appearance)
• 1974: Paul
• 1993: Peter Przygodda, editor (documentary, appearance)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stern interview with Sylvie Winter

Web links

• Sylvie Winter in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Sylvie Winter at filmportal.de
• biography