Elisabeth Bergner

alt=Elisabeth Bergner during her visit to Israel, 1949. Beno Rothenberg, Meitar collection, National Library of Israel Elisabeth Bergner during her visit to Israel, 1949. Beno Rothenberg, Meitar collection, National Library of Israel

Elisabeth Bergner (22 August 1897 – 12 May 1986) was an Austrian-British actress. Primarily a stage actress, her career flourished in Berlin and Paris before she moved to London to work in films. She played the title role in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934). Her signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never, a 1934 play written for her by Margaret Kennedy. She played Gemma, first in London and then in the Broadway debut, and in a 1935 film version for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred in the American film Paris Calling (1941). In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League.

Early life She was born Ella vel Ettel Bergner in Drohobych, Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Ukraine) to Sara Bergner (née Wagner) and Emil Bergner ( Juda Schmelke-Bergner), a merchant. She grew up in a secular Jewish home. The Hebrew she heard in her childhood was associated with Yom Kippur and Pesach, and on her visits to Israel, she apologized for not knowing the language.

She first acted on stage at age 14, and appeared in Innsbruck a year later. In Vienna at age 16, she toured Austrian and German provinces with a Shakespearean company. She worked as an artist's model, posing for sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, who fell in love with her. She eventually moved to Munich and later Berlin.

Career In 1923, she made her film debut in Der Evangelimann. With the rise of Nazism, Bergner moved to London with director Paul Czinner, and they married in 1933. Her stage work in London included The Boy David (1936) by J.M. Barrie, his last play, which he wrote especially for her, and Escape Me Never by Margaret Kennedy. Catherine the Great was banned in Germany because of the government's racial policies, according to Time on 26 March 1934.

In 1954, Bergner temporarily returned to Germany, where she acted in movies and on the stage; the Berlin district of Steglitz named a city park after her. In 1973, she starred in Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian), which was nominated for an Academy Award and which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film of 1974. In 1980, Austria awarded her the Cross of Merit for Science and Art, and, in 1982, she won the Eleonora Duse Prize Asolo.

Bergner was also reputedly the inspiration for the character of Dora Martin in the novel Mephisto by Klaus Mann.

Death She later moved to London, where she died, aged 88, from cancer. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 15 May 1986, where she is commemorated with an oval memorial tablet in the West Cloister.