- Born
- Died
- Birth nameKaroline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer
- Height5′ 0¼″ (1.53 m)
- Lotte Lenya was a Tony Award-winning and Academy award-nominated actress and singer. While best remembered in the U.S. for her supporting role as Rosa Klebb in the classic Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), she is celebrated in Germany for her ground-breaking performances in the plays of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and her recordings of songs from those works.
She was born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blaumauer on October 18, 1898, in Vienna, Austria (at that time Austro-Hungarian Empire), into a working class family. Young Lenya was fond of dancing. In 1914 she moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There she began using her stage name, Lotte Lenya. In Swizerland she studied classical dance, singing and acting and made her stage debut at the Schauspielhaus. In 1921 she moved to Berlin and blended in the city's cosmopolitan cultural milieu. In 1924 she met composer Kurt Weill, and they married in 1926. She performed in several productions of 'The Threepenny Opera', which became an important step in her acting career.
In 1933, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, Lotte Lenya escaped from the country. At the same time, being stressed by the circumstances of life, she divorced from Kurt Weil, to be reunited with him two years later. In 1935 both emigrated to the United States and remarried in 1937. After Kurt Weill's death, she dedicated her efforts to keeping Weill's music played in numerous productions worldwide. In 1957 she won a Tony award for her role as Jenny, performed in English, in a Broadway production of 'The Threepenny Opera'.
Lotte Lenya shot to international fame with her portrayal of Contessa Magda Terbilli-Gozales, Vivien Leigh's friend in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). The role brought Lenya an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She gained additional fame after she appeared as Rosa Klebb, former head of operations for SMERSH/KGB, and now a sadistic Spectre agent with poisonous knife in her shoe, in From Russia with Love (1963). She died of cancer on November 27, 1981, in New York. She is entombed with Kurt Weill in a mausoleum, in Mount Repose Cemetery, in Haverstraw, New York, USA.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
- SpousesRichard Siemanowski(June 9, 1971 - June 6, 1973) (divorced)Russell Detweiller(November 2, 1962 - October 30, 1969) (his death)George Davis(July 7, 1951 - November 25, 1957) (his death)Kurt Weill(January 19, 1937 - April 3, 1950) (his death)Kurt Weill(January 28, 1926 - 1933) (divorced)
- ParentsFranz Paul BlamauerJohanna Teuschl Blamauer
- RelativesKaroline Blamauer(Sibling)Franz Blamauer(Sibling)Maximilian Blamauer(Sibling)Maria Blamauer(Sibling)
- After wearing a pair of shoes with knives sticking out on From Russia with Love (1963), some people looked at her shoes, when she first met them.
- Lenya, as the wife of famous composer Kurt Weill, would often star in his operas and musicals. At the world premiere of his "Threepenny Opera" in 1928, her name was inadvertently left out of the program guide, despite her playing the female lead.
- After Kurt Weill's death in 1950, Lotte, no longer confident of her talent, reluctantly agreed to appear in a memorial concert at Town Hall. The concert was such a huge success that it prompted annual revivals until 1965. She also spent the rest of her life dedicated to keeping Kurt's music alive through exhaustive searches of lost work, administering copyrights and, of course, her legendary concerts.
- The Bobby Darin version of the song "Mack the Knife" (written by Lotte Lenya's husband Kurt Weill) mentions her by name.
- Is entombed, with Kurt Weill, at the Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York.
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