Ursula Thiess

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Ursula Thiess , b. Schmidt (born May 15, 1924 in Hamburg , † June 19, 2010 in Burbank , California ) was a German-American actress .

Life

Ursula Schmidt grew up in Hamburg. When she refused to join the Association of German Girls in 1939 , she was sentenced to a year-long labor service.

In 1942 she married the German film producer Georg Otto Thiess. The marriage, from which the daughter Manuela and the son Michael emerged, was divorced in 1947. After the divorce, Ursula Thiess worked successfully as a photo model and moved from Berlin to Munich . In 1949 she received her first small film role alongside Luise Ullrich , René Deltgen and Dieter Borsche in the German film Nachtwache , directed by Harald Braun .

In the spring of 1951 she went to Hollywood with her two children at the invitation of Howard Hughes . There she got a contract with the film studio RKO Pictures . Presented to the media as the “most beautiful woman in the world”, Thiess graced the cover of an issue of the US magazine Life in 1951 . She starred in some films, but without making the career she had hoped for. In her first Hollywood film, the adventure film Monsun (1952), George Nader was her film partner. In other films she played alongside Hollywood stars such as Glenn Ford in Americano (1955) and Rock Hudson in Guns for Bengali (1954), as well as with Robert Mitchum in Bandido (1956).

In 1954 she married the actor Robert Taylor . With the birth of their two children in 1955 and 1959, Ursula Thiess devoted herself entirely to family life on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley . As an actress, she only appeared sporadically. At the side of her husband, she starred in two episodes of the television series No Case for FBI , in which Robert Taylor played the lead role. In 1963 she was in front of the camera for an episode of the crime series 77 Sunset Strip . In the spring of 1969, a tumor was found in her husband's lungs. In May Thiess wanted to bring her drug addict son Michael medication and found him dead, Robert Taylor died shortly afterwards in June. She married a third time in the 1970s, and the marriage lasted until her husband's death in 1986. Thiess spent the last years of her life in an assisted living facility in California. Her autobiography was published in 2003 with the title "... but I have promises to keep." My Life Before, With, and After Robert Taylor .

Thiess died of natural causes in an assisted living facility in Burbank on June 19, 2010, at the age of 86.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1949: Night watch
  • 1952: Monsoon ( Monsoon )
  • 1954: Rifles for Bengali ( Bengal Brigade )
  • 1955: Americano ( The Americano )
  • 1956: Grenade Joe ( Bandido )
  • 1960–1961: No case for FBI ( The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor ) (TV)
  • 1963: 77 Sunset Strip (TV)
  • 1972: Left Hand of Gemini

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ An artist, an actress , obituary on beatricedailysun.com (English)
  2. ↑ http://www.berliner-kurier.de/ursula-thiess-starb-mit-86-jahren-in-hollywood-das-erste-deutsche-fraeuleinwunder-17566156
  3. ↑ Autobiography at openlibrary.org
personal data
SURNAME Thiess, Ursula
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmidt, Ursula (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 2010
Place of death Burbank , California