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- Actress
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Anita Pallenberg was a model and actress best known for her involvement with The Rolling Stones in the 1960s and 1970s. She was born in 1942 to Arnold Pallenberg, a descendant of a prominent family of furniture manufacturers from Cologne, Germany, and Elfriede Paula Wiederhold, a German secretary. She grew up in Rome, Italy, where her father owned a travel agency, and Germany, where she was sent to a boarding school at her father's request. After being expelled from school at sixteen, she lived in Munich, where she studied at an art school, hung out with the La Dolce Vita crowd in Rome and eventually traveled to New York where she connected with Andy Warhol's Factory. In 1965, Anita Pallenberg was working as a model all over Europe when she met The Rolling Stones backstage at a concert in Munich. She started a tumultuous relationship with guitarist Brian Jones that lasted until she left him for his band-mate Keith Richards in 1967. With Richards, she formed a relationship that lasted twelve years and produced three children. During her time with The Rolling Stones, Anita was considered to be a muse for the band and a huge influence on their style and music. She also became known as an actress in her own right in the late '60s and early '70s, working with directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, who directed her debut A Degree of Murder (1967) and Roger Vadim in Barbarella (1968). The end of her relationship with Richards in the late 1970s, personal struggles with addiction and the death of her youngest son shortly after his birth saw her drift from the public eye for many years. In the '90s, Anita Pallenberg returned to the spotlight. She got a degree in fashion design and would occasionally take up small roles in film and on television. Her status as a fashion icon, inspiring designers and celebrities, remains to the present day. Anita Pallenberg died in 2017 due to complications from hepatitis C.- Leonie Benesch was born on 22 April 1991 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for The White Ribbon (2009), The Teachers' Lounge (2023) and Babylon Berlin (2017).
- Antonia "Toni" Garrn is a German fashion model, actress and humanitarian. She got her big break in the fashion industry after signing an exclusive contract with Calvin Klein in 2008. Garrn debuted on the runway at age 15 as an exclusive for the Calvin Klein Spring/Summer 2008 runway show in New York. She then went on to be featured in the designer's ad campaign. The following season, she again walked exclusively for Calvin Klein. In the 2009-seasons, she walked over 60 shows for prestigious designers such as Stella McCartney, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors and others during fashion week.
She has appeared in Vogue (Paris, Italy, Germany, Russia, China, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Korea, US), Muse, Elle (US, Italy, France), Numéro (France, Tokyo), Glamour (US), Marie-Claire (Italy), Another Magazine, Harper's Bazaar (US), i-D, and on the covers of Tush magazine and V magazine as the eighth ranked model of spring 2008. She also covered the February 2009 edition of Numéro for their #100 issue.
In early 2012, she re-entered the Top 50 Models Women-list of the international modelling site models, ranking in 20th place.She was first featured on the list in 2009, eventually peaking in 11th place.
In 2014, she collaborated with German denim label Closed and designs her own line of jeans. Proceeds from the sales of her Closed T-shirt, her "Toni" jeans for women are donated to a charity that focuses on the education of young girls in Africa.
Garrn's resume includes covers for French, Japanese, Chinese, German and Russian Numéro, German, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, and Thai Vogue, German and South African GQ, W, French, German and Italian Elle, Madame Figaro, Muse, Harper's Bazaar, Allure, Glamour, The Edit and Grazia.
She appeared in advertisements for Calvin Klein, Prada, Versace, Cartier (Fragrance), Jill Stuart, Fendi, Chloé, Emporio Armani, Hugo Boss, Zara, H&M, Dior, Donna Karan, JOOP!, Shiseido, Filippa K, J.Crew, Neiman Marcus, Givenchy (Makeup), Tommy Hilfiger, Juicy Couture, Massimo Dutti, Max Mara, Peek & Cloppenburg, Express, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, L'Oréal, Biotherm, NARS Cosmetics, Mango, Ann Taylor, Blumarine, Aigner, Lancel, Alexandre Vauthier, Elie Saab, Calzedonia, Seafolly and Schwarzkopf.
In 2011, Garrn started modeling for Victoria's Secret, firstly appearing in their catalogs doing the clothing line. Soon after she walked in the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and did a photo-shoot for the PINK-line with fellow model Shanina Shaik. Her first Victoria's Secret fashion show casting was actually in 2010, but she was ultimately not cast for that year's show. In November 2012, she returned to the catwalk of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show for the second time, closing the show. She also walked the show in 2013 and again in the 2018 show after a hiatus.
In 2014, she became an ambassador for Plan International's global Because I Am a Girl campaign and has hosted and co-hosted several fundraising events in support of Plan. In February 2016, Toni Garrn established the Toni Garrn Foundation, which aims to raise money for projects advocating for and advancing girls' rights. - Director
- Producer
- Actor
Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, "Sensin - You're The One!" ("Sensin - Du bist es!"), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His second short film, "Weed" ("Getürkt", 1996), received several national and international festival prizes. His first full length feature film, "Short Sharp Shock" ("Kurz und schmerzlos", 1998) won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: "In July" ("Im Juli", 2000), "Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren" (2001), "Solino" (2002), the Berlinale Golden Bear-winner and winner of the German and European Film Awards "Head-On" ("Gegen die Wand", 2003), and "Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul" (2005).- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Eva Habermann was born on 16 January 1976 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for Lexx (1996), The Ugly Truth (2021) and Under ConTroll (2019). She was previously married to Hans-Ullrich Hauenstein.- Actor
- Producer
Jannik Schümann was born on 23 July 1992 in Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor and producer, known for Monster Hunter (2020), Center of My World (2016) and Barbara (2012).- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, Danish and English. His reputation, which was breathed to life by the French nouvelle vague critiques who developed the "auteur" (author) theory of film criticism, casts him as one of the cinema's great ironists. In his American and European films, his characters perceive their lives quite differently than does the movie audience viewing "them" in a theater. Dealing with love, death and societal constraints, his films often depend on melodrama, particularly the high-suds soap operas he lensed for producer Ross Hunter in the 1950s: Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and his last American film, Imitation of Life (1959) (Sirk's favorite American film was the Western Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), which was shot in 3-D).
Sirk's path to crafting what are now considered paradigmatic dissections of conformist 1950s American society began when he was 14 years old, in his native Germany, when he discovered the theater. He was very influenced by William Shakespeare's history plays. The young Sirk also liked the cinema, particularly films starring Danish actress Asta Nielsen. Sirk credited Nielsen's films with providing him an early exposure to "dramas of swollen emotions".
After World War One he studied law at Munich University beginning in 1919, then transferred to Hamburg University, where he read philosophy and the history of art. Following in the vein of his father, he wrote for the newspapers to earn money, and also began to work in the theater. It was in his native Hamburg that he made his professional debut as a theatrical director, with 'Hermann Bossdorf''s "Bahnmeister Tod" ("Stationmaster Death") in 1922. Until forced to leave Germany with the rise of the Nazi dictatorship, Sirk developed into one of the leading theatrical directors in the Weimar Republic. He began directing shorts at UFA Studios in 1934, and made his first feature film, April, April! (1935), shooting it first in Dutch and then in German).
His cinema technique was influenced by his interest in painting, particularly the works of Daumier and Delacroix, which he later claimed left "their imprint on the visual style of my melodramas". He made eight films in all for UFA through 1937, and the German Minister of Propaganda who oversaw the film industry, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, was an admirer. However, he left Germany in 1937 after his second wife, stage actress 'Hilde Jary', had fled to Rome to escape persecution as a Jew. Sirk's first wife and the mother of his only child, Lydia Brinken, a follower of Adolf Hitler, had denounced Sirk and his relationship with Jary, necessitating their departure. Sirk never saw his son again, who died during World War Two.
Sirk and Jary eventually made it to the US by 1941, and he joined the community of émigré/refugee film people working in Hollywood. His first directorial stint in America was Hitler's Madman (1943), but it is for his work at Universal International in the 1950s for which he is primarily known. For producer Ross Hunter he made nine films, many of which involved the collaboration of Rock Hudson, cinematographer Russell Metty, screenwriter George Zuckerman and art director Alexander Golitzen.
"I was, and to a large extent still am, too much of a loner," he said in his retirement, and his partnership with Universal, Hollywood and American society at large was a love-hate relationship. He and his wife did not approve of the excesses of the Hollywood life style, such as nude women splashing around in producer Albert Zugsmith's pool during a party (he shot two films for Zugsmith). Even though he had his biggest success with the remake of "Imitation of Life" (winner of the Laurel Award given out by movie exhibitors for the most successful picture of 1959), he and his wife left the US for Switzerland after the movie wrapped. The move was partly due to poor health, but by 1959 he had had enough of America, which he never felt at home in. The couple lived in Lugano, Switzerland until his death in 1987.
When he retired from American filmmaking (he was to make only one more feature length film, in German, in 1963), his reputation was that of a second- or third-tier director who turned out glossy Hollywood soap operas, a sort of second-rate Vincente Minnelli without the saving grace of Minelli's undeniable genius for musicals. In the nearly half-century since, Sirk has become one of the most revered of Hollywood's auteurs.
Jean-Luc Godard got the ball rolling in the April 1959 issue of "Cahiers du cinéma", in which he wrote a love letter to Sirk about his adaptation of the 'Erich Maria Remarque' novel A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958). But the true genesis of the Sirk cult was another "Cahiers" article, "L'aveugle et le Miroir ou l'impossible cinema de Douglas Sirk" ("The Blind Man and the Mirror or The Impossible Cinema of Douglas Sirk"), which was in the April 1967 issue. That issue of "Cahiers" also featured an extended interview with Sirk and a "biofilmographie". More converts came to the Sirk cult via Andrew Sarris, who popularized the "auteur" concept in his seminal 1968 work, " The American Cinema," Yb Gucci Gae ranked Sirk on "The Far Side of Paradise". Sarris faintly praised Sirk's handling of the soap elements of his Universal oeuvre by his not shirking from going for broke and stirring all the improbable elements of melodrama into a heady witches' brew; he also complemented his distinctive visual style. However, the major work that transformed Sirk's reputation was rooted in the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the man himself: Jon Halliday's 1971 book-long interview, "Conversations with Sirk", which made his critical reputation in the English-speaking world. The Sirk of Halliday's book is an intellectual with a thorough grasp of filmmaking. The book is must-reading for any student or practitioner of the cinema. The 1972 Edinburgh Film Festival featured a 20-film retrospective of Sirk, and in 1974, the University of Connecticut Film Society put on a complete retrospective of Sirk's American films. The rise of 'Rainer Werner Fassbinder' as the best and the brightest of the post-war German directors also burnished Sirk's reputation, as Fassbinder was an unabashed fan of his films. Fassbinder's films clearly were indebted to Sirk's melodrama, his mise-en-scene, and his irony (Fassbinder visited Sirk at his Swiss home, and the two became friends. Sirk later, with Fassbinder's encouragement, taught at the Munich film school).
Society is an omnipresent character in Sirk's films, as important as the characters played by his actors, such as Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. Sirk's characters are buffeted by forces beyond their control, as their lives are delineated by cultural mores that constrain their behavior and their moral choices. In addition to this fatalism, Sirk's characters must contend with repression. It is the latter trope that recruits the most converts to the Sirk cult, as the forces of repression are "signalled" through the imagery of a Sirk film, which typically was crafted in collaboration with the Oscar-winning lighting cameraman Russell Metty when Sirk worked for Hunter at Universal. The plots of the movies that are at the core of the Sirk cult are rooted in problems that would be insurmountable but for the miracles provided by the deus ex machina known as the Hollywood Happy Ending.
While Sirk was glad that his reputation had waxed since his retirement and that he was now respected, he was uncomfortable with some of the criticisms of his work. He particularly was irritated by cineastes' labeling him an unequivocal critic of the American Way and of the social conformity of 1950s America. Many critics seemed to see Sirk as American cinema's equivalent to Bertolt Brecht, that is, a fierce critic of the bourgeoisie. Sirk, like many of his generation in Germany, had been influenced by Brecht (he had directed a production of Brecht/Kurt Weill's Three Penny Opera (1963) in Germany), but he did not feel that he was a brother-in-arms of the unabashed communist Brecht, as many of his critics would have it. Like one of his own characters, Sirk was now subjected to societal forced outside his control, quite unlike the worlds he had controlled as a director in Germany and the United States.
Ironically for the great ironist, when Douglas Sirk died on January 14, 1987, his reputation was not yet in full flower. He continues to exert his influence on a new generation of filmmakers all over the world.- Gorgeous was too tame a word for this foreigner stunner. Glamorous brunette beauty Ursula Thiess was born Ursula Schmidt in Hamburg, Germany on May 15, 1924, the daughter of Hans Schmidt, who managed a printing company, and Wilhelmine Lange, her turbulent childhood including working as compulsory farm laborer on the orders of the Nazi government when the teen refused to join the paramilitary Hitler Youth Movement. She later began her entertainment career in her native homeland appearing on the stage and dubbing female voices in American films.
Married to director Georg Thieß, the couple's marriage was a relatively unhappy one and they eventually divorced. With two children (Manuela and Michael) in tow, she found work in the late 1940s/early 1950s as a fashion model in Berlin. She left postwar Germany at the urging of Howard Hughes and signed up with his RKO company for film representation.
Billed as "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" during her initial build-up, her debut movie was as a mixed-race English/Indian girl in the outdoor drama Monsoon (1952) opposite the handsome, frequently bare-chested George Nader. While she failed to weave the same kind of foreign magic as that of Marlene Dietrich, she was far more beautiful and was voted "Most Promising Star of 1952" by Modern Screen Magazine and a Golden Globe the next year. This exotic temptation remained a fetching distraction amid the rugged scenery where, percentage-wise, the story and action remained strongly focused on her handsome he-man co-stars: Robert Stack in The Iron Glove (1954); Rock Hudson in Bengal Brigade (1954); and Glenn Ford in The Americano (1955); Robert Mitchum in Bandido! (1956), among others. Her Hollywood career wound up very short but sweet.
During her brief peak, Ursula met and eventually married the exceedingly handsome film star Robert Taylor (in 1954) and she subsequently abandoned her film career. Outside of her two children by her first marriage, Ursula had two more children (Terrance in 1955 and Tessa in 1959), by Taylor. Though she seemed quite content to be out of the limelight, she did appear with some regularity on her husband's TV series The Detectives (1959) during its first season, playing a police reporter who has a brief affair with Taylor's character. While raising her children was her prime job, she also became an active volunteer at a children's hospital.
Following her son Michael's tragic suicide from a drug overdose and husband Taylor's death shortly thereafter from lung cancer, both in 1969, Ursula was glimpsed here and there in a light sprinkling of film and TV appearances before bowing out completely. Her last film was the completely overlooked [error] with Richard Egan and Ian McShane.
Surviving an operation for a benign brain tumor in 1979, the former actress married wealthily for a third time and lived in Hawaii during part of that marriage, but would find herself widowed again in 1987 after 12 years. Known to be an excellent home decorator and gourmet cook, she eventually wrote an autobiography entitled "But I Have Promises to Keep" in 2003. Living in the Los Angeles area for the remainder of her life, she eventually entered an assisted facility in Burbank and died on June 19, 2010, at the age of 86, survived by her three remaining children. - Actor
- Script and Continuity Department
- Soundtrack
David Schütter was born in 1991 in Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor, known for Charlie's Angels (2019), Never Look Away (2018) and In a Land That No Longer Exists (2022).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Moritz Jahn was born on 17 April 1995 in Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Dark (2017), Morgen hör ich auf (2016) and Offline: Are You Ready for the Next Level? (2016).- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Sophie Charlotte was born on 29 April 1989 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for The Killer (2023), Dark Days (2017) and Malhação (1995). She was previously married to Daniel de Oliveira.- Wonderfully talented German-born actor, capable of tremendous comedic and dramatic performances, usually as some type of pompous bureaucrat or similarly arrogant individual. Ruman was born on October 11, 1884, in Hamburg, Germany, and actually studied electrotechnology in college before making the switch to acting. He served with the Imperial German Forces in World War I before coming to the United States in 1924. He became friendly with playwright George S. Kaufman and critic Alexander Woollcott and was regularly appearing in high-quality stage productions on Broadway.
With the advent of talkies, he was kept very busy in the cinema and became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing as stiff-shirted NYC opera owner Herman Gottlieb in the comedy classic A Night at the Opera (1935). He played a know-it-all surgeon crossing swords with Groucho Marx over what exactly was wrong with hypochondriac Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races (1937). and a dual role in A Night in Casablanca (1946). With his German accent, he was also a regular in several WWII espionage thrillers, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), They Came to Blow Up America (1943), and The Hitler Gang (1944), and gave a superb portrayal of the two-faced POW guard Schulz in the splendid Stalag 17 (1953). He was also popular with famed director Ernst Lubitsch, who cast Ruman in Ninotchka (1939), and To Be or Not to Be (1942). In all, he notched up over 100 feature film appearances as well as guest star spots on many TV shows.
Ruman suffered ill health for the final two decades of his life and passed away on February 14, 1967, from a heart attack. - Susanne Lothar was born on 15 November 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Funny Games (1997), The White Ribbon (2009) and The Reader (2008). She was married to Ulrich Mühe. She died on 21 July 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
- A tall, athletic bear of a man, Raimund Harmstorf rose to stardom on the strength of a single role: the amoral, brutal, self-righteous captain Wolf Larsen (a Nietzschean 'superman', if there ever was one) in Jack London's Der Seewolf (1971). Harmstorf's was a genuinely chilling, mesmerizing performance, which captivated audiences and contributed to this German/Austrian/French/Romanian co-production (with a nominal American-born lead) to be sold to numerous countries worldwide. The role not only defined his career but led to various myths about the actor himself. The most famous of these related to Larsen/Harmstorf squashing a raw potato with one hand, by all accounts not an easy thing to do. Detractors claimed the potato had been a cooked one, which it almost certainly was. Nonetheless, Harmstorf proved in subsequent appearances on national television that he was more than capable of pulverizing a raw spud with one paw. A publicity stunt had him issuing forth a nationwide challenge (with prize money offered) for anyone capable of emulating his feat.
Raimund Harmstorf grew up in Hamburg where he studied medicine and then attended the local college for music and the performing arts. He made the rounds of auditions for plays with modest success, leading to engagements in Hamburg and Berlin. He spent two years in South America cultivating his image as a macho adventurer, returning to Germany with two Deutschmarks in his pocket. A lover of action sports (paragliding, surfing and fast cars), he was also an accomplished athlete (in a 1972 issue of 'Bravo' magazine, he claimed to have been a regional decathlon youth champion). By the mid-1960's, he started to establish himself on screen, initially in small TV roles. After 'Wolf Larsen' put him on the map, he had further success in the title role of Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff (1975) and as the vernacular protagonist of Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand (1979) (a role, he also played on the stage). He also made appearances in several spaghetti westerns along with such genre favorites as Franco Nero and Terence Hill.
By the early 1990's, Harmstorf's life as an action hero began to unravel. He had sustained numerous sporting injuries (broken arms and legs, a hole in his knee after a botched operation), lost two teeth in a screen fight with Bud Spencer and was (during shooting of the same film) accidentally shot in the foot. His restaurant, "Zum Seewolf", had gone bankrupt. In 1994, Harmstorf was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. He unwisely self-medicated to the extent of causing severe side effects, including bouts of paranoia and depression. Scurrilous tabloids reported on the minutiae of his psychiatric condition and one even published a premature report of his suicide. What was left of Harmstorf's fragile state of mind broke and he hanged himself on the night of May 3 1998. - Actress
- Producer
Hannah Herzsprung was born on 7 September 1981 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for The Reader (2008), Who Am I (2014) and Four Minutes (2006).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Marc Hosemann was born on 20 August 1970 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Soul Kitchen (2009), The Golden Glove (2019) and Sophia, Death and Me (2023).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kostja Ullmann was born on 30 May 1984 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Summer Storm (2004), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and Verfolgt (2006).- Actor
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Maximilian Mundt was born in April 1996 in Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Gran Turismo (2023), How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) (2019) and Susi (2020).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Bruno Alexander was born on 17 October 1999 in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Intimate (2023), Die Discounter (2021) and We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (2021).- Actress
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Doris Kunstmann was born on 22 October 1944 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress and assistant director, known for Funny Games (1997), Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) and Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eyes (1973).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1957. In his teens he left high school and worked as a cooker in a boat.
Then he studied painting and graphism in the Academy of arts in Hamburg where he also started experimenting with video and photography. Those experimental movies attracted the attention of some producers of the German TV.
Hirschbiegel became popular thanks to his tv movies (especially dramas and thrillers). In 2001 he shot his first movie for cinema: "Das Experiment" that won several awards in many festivals all around the world. That movie is an intense investigation of the aggressive behaviour in a simulated prison environment.
His second movie, "Mein letzter Film", released in 2002, is a 90 minutes' monologue about a woman in her fifties who wants to re-start his life.
In 2004 "Downfall" was released, his third movie, and till now his greatest success. "Downfall" is about the last 12 days of life of Adolf Hitler narrated out of the sight of her young secretary, Traudl Junge. That movie has stirred up much controversy because it portrays Hitler and the Nazis as human beings and not just as evil.
Hirschbiegel has demonstrated in all his movies to be an specialist of dramas set in claustrophobic environments.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Christiane Krüger, the daughter of German movie star Hardy Krüger, was born on September 8, 1945 in Hamburg, Germany, four months after V-E Day brought an end to the war in Europe. She has appeared mostly in German-speaking movies and television, though she has made forays into English-language roles, including the 1985 TV mini-series Anne of Green Gables (1985). However, she is most famous to American audiences for her turn as an Eva Perón clone in Radley Metzger's exploitation cinema classic "Mother" (1973). Basically a grindhouse flick with Metzger's typical arthouse pretensions, "Mother" (a.k.a. "Little Mother", "The Story of Evita" and "Blood Queen" in the UK) is a roman a clef loosely based on the life of Eva Perón, updated from the 1940s and '50s to contemporary times. In the film, Kruger played Marina, a schemer who sleeps her way to the summit, first by becoming a TV weather-girl before making it as the wife of a top South American politician who becomes President of his beknighted country.
In this celluloid potboiler, the cruel and sadistic, Machiavellian Marina is the real power behind the throne and becomes so powerful, other politicians conspire to assassinate her lest she replace her bewitched hubbie as president. Like any Metzger film, female nudity is plentiful, and though there are many instances of body-doubling, in a generous amount of scenes, Krüger herself appears in the all-together, showing the charms that captivated the TV station manager, the future president of a banana republic, then said banana republic itself. Surely one of the summits of trash cinema!- Billed as "the black-haired volcano", sloe-eyed Laya Raki made international headlines in the 1950s, both on and off the screen. She was born Brunhilde Marie Joerns near Brunswick in Germany, the daughter of a German vaudevillian and circus artiste who earned his living with magic acts and acrobatics. Her Javanese mother left when she was five years old. Life was tough in the immediate aftermath of the war in occupied Germany and seventeen-year old Laya made ends meet by cashing in on the fad for erotic cabaret by performing striptease, initially at the Monte Carlo club in Berlin. With a solid background in ballet and having followed in her father's footsteps as an acrobat, she found herself perfectly suited to performing all manner of exotic and alluring dances. She was even credited with introducing the Cuban mambo to German audiences. With her long dark mane and high cheekbones, sultry and curvaceous Laya became an overnight success and photographed well as a pin-up. In 1948, she adopted her stage name, primarily based on her admiration for the (sadly short-lived) Ufa star La Jana. With her new-found fame as Germany's most popular night club performer came engagements in Scandinavia, Switzerland and Italy. Then film offers followed.
Hamburg-based producer Walter Koppel was first to secure her services for the comedy Die Dritte von rechts (1950), directed by Géza von Cziffra . There were several more pictures which showcased her hoofing and pirouetting skills, but nothing of note until 1953. A conman (bigamist and serial fraudster Arthur Howard Rowson, posing as big-time producer and director 'Major Michael Howard') effectively shanghaied Laya to London with offers of $500 per week and a personal contract. By the time she arrived in England, the German press had already begun circulating a story that she had been kidnapped. With her picture now in English papers, the penniless Rowson was quickly exposed and ended up 'doing porridge' at the Old Bailey. Fortunately for Laya (who was also without funds and unemployed), the old adage that pretty much all publicity is good publicity proved to be true. George H. Brown , a genuine producer at Rank, was on the lookout for an exotic-looking gal and was on hand to sign Laya for his upcoming picture Land of Fury (1954), being filmed at Pinewood Studios. The 22-year old would star opposite Jack Hawkins as the daughter of a Maori chief and perform a traditional dance. Since Laya had, as contemporary papers put it, "never been closer to New Zealand than the English Channel" local Maoris in Britain protested with their own war dance. That minor controversy notwithstanding, Laya went on to act and dance in other films, including the big budget MGM epic Quentin Durward (1955), starring Robert Taylor. She also had leading roles in the Austrian romance Roter Mohn (1956) (by now almost typecast, as a gypsy dancer) and in the West German comedy Küß mich noch einmal (1956) .
Publicity followed her everywhere. By the early 60s, Laya had been on the cover of Picturegoer, Parade, Vue, People and other magazines and postcards, usually wearing bikinis or other (trademark) revealing or scanty outfits. This all added to her popularity, as did a wardrobe malfunction in June 1961 at a hotel wine presentation during the Berlin Film Festival when her dress split open.
With acting lessons under her belt, Laya guested in American TV shows, including Hawaiian Eye (1959), Tales of Wells Fargo (1957) and I Spy (1965). Between 1963 and 1965, she provided the glamour element to Crane (1963), a British adventure series filmed partly on location in Morocco. In it, she was cast as Halima, a local dancer who works as bartender for the eponymous hero, played by Patrick Allen. She had few decent roles offered to her after that and she retired from the screen a year later in 1966. Until his death in 2005, Laya Raki was married to Australian actor Ron Randell. She appeared with him on stage in a 1971 Sydney production of "Come Live with Me". Her second husband was Duane O. Wood, a former vice president of Lockheed International. - Dennis Mojen was born in 1993 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Isi & Ossi (2020), Dreamfactory (2019) and Into the Night (2020).
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Born in Hamburg, Anna Bederke discovered her enthusiasm for film at a young age and shot her first short film at 16. She studied directing at Hochschule Bildende Kunst Hamburg (HfbK) with tutors including Wim Wenders and directed several short films. A short time later she swapped being behind the camera to acting in front of the camera. Fatih Akin cast her for "Soul Kitchen", for which Variety praised her debut with a "real discovery". This was followed by many collaborations with renowned German directors including Matthias Glasner, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Markus Goller, Sönke Wortmann and others.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
German-American Film, TV and Voice Actor, comedian, writer and the voice of Mercy from Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch. Known for Red Dwarf XI, Homeland, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, David Chase's Not Fade Away. Lucie has written three solo comedy shows which have toured in the US and internationally and was nominated for the NY Innovative Theater Award.- Farina Flebbe was born on 27 July 1994 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2024), Miss Merkel - Mord auf dem Friedhof (2024) and Großstadtrevier (1986).
- Milena Tscharntke was born on 3 April 1996 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for The New End (2018), Druck (2018) and Isy Way Out (2018).
- Manon von Gerkan was born in 1972 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Shallow Hal (2001), A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001) and Sports Illustrated 1995 Swimsuit Video (1995).
- Actress
- Writer
Pheline Roggan was born on 13 June 1981 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress and writer, known for Soul Kitchen (2009), Nicole's Cage (2017) and Grantchester (2014).- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Bjarne Mädel grew up in Hamburg before studying world literature and creative writing in California before returning to Germany to study theater and literature in Erlangen. Subsequently, he underwent acting training in Potsdam, graduating in 1996. Mädel made his acting debut the same year at the Volkstheater Rostock, where he worked for three years before joining the ensemble of the "Schauspielhaus" in Hamburg.
In 2002, Bjarne Mädel made his television debut with a guest appearance in the series "Der Ermittler." He then appeared in various television series and films, including "Königskinder," "Bella Block," and "Tatort." His breakthrough came in 2004 when he landed a leading role in the comedy series "Stromberg" alongside Christoph Maria Herbst. His portrayal of Berthold 'Ernie' Heisterkamp earned him praise and led to his own series, "Der kleine Mann," where he played the protagonist.
In 2008, Bjarne Mädel took on a leading role in the crime series "Mord mit Aussicht" while also making guest appearances in various other shows. In 2011, the comedy series "Der Tatortreiniger" premiered, with Mädel starring as Heiko "Schotty" Schotte. The series quickly became a favorite among critics, earning Mädel two Grimme Awards in 2012 and 2013, as well as nominations for the German Television Award. He also won the German Comedy Award for Best Actor. Mädel is also well-known as a narrator in numerous radio and audiobook productions.- Helmut Griem was born on 6 April 1932 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor, known for Cabaret (1972), The Damned (1969) and Fabrik der Offiziere (1960). He was married to Helga Koehler. He died on 19 November 2004 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
- Theresa Underberg was born on 6 May 1985 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress, known for Verbotene Liebe (1995), Tatort (1970) and Zarah: Wilde Jahre (2017). She has been married to ??? since 11 June 2021. They have one child.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Patrick Bach was born on 30 March 1968 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Silas (1981), Nicht von schlechten Eltern (1993) and Jack Holborn (1982). He is married to Carola Bach. They have two children.- Tatjana Patitz was born on 25 March 1966 in Hamburg, West Germany. She was an actress, known for Rising Sun (1993), The Larry Sanders Show (1992) and Ready to Wear (1994). She was married to Jason Johnson. She died on 11 January 2023 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Wanja Mues was born on 27 December 1973 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor and director, known for The Pianist (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and Unsere Hagenbecks (1991). He has been married to Julia since 2004. They have two children.- Anja Schüte was born on 2 September 1964 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress, known for State of Wonder (1984), Pogo 1104 (1984) and Die Wicherts von nebenan (1986). She has been married to Petter K. since August 2019. She was previously married to Roland Kaiser.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jürgen Vogel was born on 29 April 1968 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor and producer, known for The Wave (2008), Der freie Wille (2006) and Life is All You Get (1997).- Director
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Tarek Roehlinger was born in 1988 in Hamburg, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for A State of Emergency (2016), Cornerstorys (2016) and Fünf nach Zwölf (2021).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Fahri Yardim was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of an academic family of Turkish extraction. Performing on stage in school productions he developed his love of acting. He trained at the Hamburger Bühnenstudio der darstellenden Künste (Hamburg Stage Studio of the Performing Arts) and appeared in theatre productions in Berlin and Hamburg. Fahri represents a generation that focuses on character rather than nationality. He is a naturalist who avoids ethnic stereotype, and his versatility is mirrored in his choice of roles: He portrayed an Anatolian in Almanya: Welcome to Germany (2011), a Greek in Kebab Connection (2004), a German Sinte in Chiko (2008), a German in Mogadischu (2008), and a woman in Unter Frauen (2012). His most memorable roles include the Brunswick-set film 66/67: Fairplay Is Over (2009). 2012 proved to be a peak year allowing him to demonstrate the range of his talent and his powerful, committed, discursive and nuanced personality. He played a priest in Marcus H. Rosenmüller's Wer's glaubt, wird selig (2012), an artist in Marc Rothemund's Men Do What They Can (2012), a paramedic in Lars Becker's ZDF thriller Die Geisterfahrer (2012), a doctor in the ProSieben crime drama Kreutzer kommt ... ins Krankenhaus (2012) and a detective in the Sat.1 thriller drama Hannah Mangold & Lucy Palm (2011). In 2013 he will appear with Ben Kingsley in the international movie version of The Physician (2013). In Austria he is a regular in the ORF police drama CopStories. And in March of 2013 he was Til Schweiger's partner in the first of several projected Tatort (1970) episodes.- Klara Deutschmann was born on 27 April 1989 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tatort (1970), Charité (2017) and Partners in Justice (2014).
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Oskar Belton was born in 1999 in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Intimate (2023), Die Discounter (2021) and Land of Mine (2015).- Sigrid Maier was born in Hamburg, Germany. She is known for G.I. Blues (1960).
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Matthias Glasner was born on 20 January 1965 in Hamburg, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Dying (2024), Der freie Wille (2006) and The Meds (1995).- Lana Cooper was born in 1981 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for Beat Beat Heart (2016) and Love Steaks (2013).
- Actress
- Producer
Vijessna Ferkic was born and raised in a small town near Hamburg, Germany. At the age of ten she was accepted into one of the first and more prestigious acting schools in Hamburg. Shortly after that Ferkic was chosen to star in the series "Die Pfefferkörner" (1998-2001). Ferkic subsequently had several guest roles on established television series and movie productions. In 2008, Ferkic was chosen to play Sophie in the movie "The Reader".- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Godehard Giese was born on 20 October 1972 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Transit (2018), Babylon Berlin (2017) and I Was, I Am, I Will Be (2019).- Actress
- Script and Continuity Department
- Additional Crew
Katrin Schaake was born on 13 November 1931 in Hamburg, Germany. She is an actress, known for The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) and What's New Pussycat (1965).- Director
- Writer
Daniel was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, where as a teenager he was host of a radio show and editor of a youth magazine. He toured with a theater, studied drama and published a play before he went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, as a peace worker. Two years later he returned to Germany to go to film school and study screenwriting at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg. He wrote a TV movie which got nominated for Germany's most prestigious media award and directed a documentary on rock musician Nick Cave. Daniel moved to Los Angeles and graduated from the American Film Institute's directing program. His thesis film got nominated for the ASC award. In the following three years he made short films, wrote songs for local singers, sat on a film festival jury in Kosovo, became a certified hypnotist and hitch-hiked across the US. In 2008 Daniel's first feature film, 'A Necessary Death', premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, before winning the audience award at AFI Fest later the same year. His second feature, 'The Last Exorcism', premiered at the Los Angeles Film Fest in 2010, was distributed by Lionsgate and grossed over $65mio worldwide. The film and/or its actors got nominated for the People's Choice Award, two Independent Spirit Awards and an MTV Movie Award. It won an Empire Award as well as awards in Sitges and Toronto.- Sophie Schütt was born on 9 March 1974 in Hamburg, West Germany. She is an actress, known for Typisch Sophie (2004), Wie angelt man sich seine Chefin (2007) and Die Gang (1997).