Lil Dagover

Lil Dagover (; born Marie Antonia Siegelinde Martha Seubert; 30 September 1887 – 23 January 1980 ) was a German actress whose film career spanned from 1913 to 1979. She was a popular film actress in the Weimar Republic.

Early life Lil Dagover was born Marie Antonia Siegelinde Martha Seubert in Madiun, Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) to German parents. Some sources inaccurately give her birth name as Marta Maria Lillits. Her father, Adolf Karl Ludwig Moritz Seubert, born in Karlsruhe/Baden Germany, was a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch colonial authorities. After completing her education she began pursuing a career as a stage actress around the principal cities of Europe. In 1907 she married actor Fritz Gustav Josef Daghofer, who was fifteen years her senior. The couple had a daughter, Eva (born 1909) but divorced a decade later, in 1919. Eva married Hungarian director Géza von Radványi in 1930.

Seubert began using a variant of her husband's surname as a professional moniker – changing the spelling of "Daghofer" to "Dagover".

Acting career in the Weimar Republic

Lil Dagover made her screen debut in a 1913 film by director Louis Held. During her marriage to Fritz Daghofer, she was introduced to several notable film directors; among them Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang. Lang cast Dagover in the role of O-Take-San in the 1919 exotic drama Harakiri which proved to be Dagover's breakout role. The same year, she was directed by Robert Wiene in the German Expressionist horror classic Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, from a script by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz opposite actors Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt. In 1926 she married film producer Georg Witt, who produced many of Dagover's future films. The couple remained married until Witt's death in 1973.

Lil Dagover's film career in German cinema through the 1920s was prolific, making over forty films and appearing opposite such actors as Emil Jannings, Nils Olaf Chrisander, Willy Fritsch, Lya De Putti, Bruno Kastner and Xenia Desni. She also made several films in Sweden for directors Olof Molander and Gustaf Molander and appeared in several French silent films – her last film appearance of the 1920s was in the 1929 Henri Fescourt-directed French silent film Monte Cristo opposite Jean Angelo and Marie Glory.

Talkies and the Third Reich

With the advent of talkies, Lil Dagover ceased making foreign films and appeared only in German productions; with the exception of one English language American film, the Michael Curtiz-directed drama The Woman from Monte Carlo (1932) with actor Walter Huston, shot on location in the United States.

After her return to Germany and the rise of the Third Reich in 1933, she avoided overt political involvement and generally appeared in popular costume musicals and comedies during World War II. However, in 1937, she received the State Actress award, and in 1944 she was awarded the War Merits Cross for entertaining Wehrmacht troops on the Eastern Front in 1943 and on the German occupied Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey in 1944.

While Dagover's films of the period were decidedly apolitical, she was known to be one of Adolf Hitler's favorite film actresses and Dagover is known to have been a dinner guest of Hitler's on several occasions.

Later career After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Dagover continued to appear in West German films. In 1948, she starred in the anti-Nazi drama Gaspary's Sons. The film follows the disintegration of a German family living under National Socialism.

Death and legacy

In 1962, Lil Dagover was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis. In 1964, she was awarded the Bambi annual television and media award from Hubert Burda Media, and the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1967.

Filmography

Die Retterin (1916) *Credited as Martha Daghofer Clown Charly (1917) *Credited as Martha Daghofer Das Rätsel der Stahlkammer (1917) *Credited as Martha Daghofer Lebendig tot (1918) Der Volontär (1918) The Song of the Mother (1918) *Credited as Martha Daghofer Bettler GmbH (1919) The Mask (1919) The Spiders (1919), as Sonnenpriesterin Naela The Dancer (1919), as Mutter Rellnow Harakiri (1919), as O-Take-San Phantome des Lebens (1919) Revenge Is Mine (1919) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), as Jane Olsen Spiritismus (1920) The Woman in Heaven (1920), as Tatjana The Hunt for Death (1920–1921, part 1, 2, 3), as Tänzerin Malatti The Mayor of Zalamea (1920), as Isabel The Blood of the Ancestors (1920), as Fürstin Wanda Lubowiczka The Kwannon of Okadera (1920), as Kwannon The Eyes of the Mask (1920) The Secret of Bombay (1921), as Die Tänzerin Farnese Island of the Dead (1921) The Medium (1921) Destiny (1921), as Young Woman / Das junge Mädchen / Zobeide / Monna Fiametta / Tiao Tsien Murders in the Greenstreet (1921) Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) (uncredited) Luise Millerin (1922), as Luise Millerin Power of Temptation (1922) Phantom (1922), as Marie Starke Lowlands (1923), as Martha Princess Suwarin (1923), as Tina Bermonte His Wife, The Unknown (1923), as Eva Comedy of the Heart (1924), as Gerda Werska Chronicles of the Gray House (1925), as Bärbe The Humble Man and the Chanteuse (1925), as Toni Seidewitz Tartuffe (1925), as Elmire, Orgon's wife Wenn die Filmkleberin gebummelt hat (1925) The Brothers Schellenberg (1926), as Esther Love is Blind (1926), as Diane The Violet Eater (1926), as Melitta von Arthof Only a Dancing Girl (1926), as Marie Berner - varieté dansös His English Wife (1927), as Cathleen Paget, née Brock Orient Express (1927), as Beate von Morton Attorney for the Heart (1927), as June Orchard The Maelstrom of Paris (1928), as Lady Amiscia Abenston The Secret Courier (1928), as Mme. Thérèse de Renal Hungarian Rhapsody (1928), as Camilla La grande passion (1928), as Sonia de Blick Marriage (1929) Monte Cristo (1929), as Mercédès / Comtesse de Morcerf Hungarian Nights (1929), as Coraly Rekoczi The Favourite of Schonbrunn (1929), as Empress Maria Theresa The Ring of the Empress (1930), as Catherine the Great The White Devil (1930), as Nelidowa There Is a Woman Who Never Forgets You (1930), as Tilly Ferrantes Va Banque (1930), as Miss Harriet Williams The Old Song (1930), as Baronin Eggedy Boycott (1930), as Mrs. Haller Die große Sehnsucht (1930), as Herself, Lil Dagover The Case of Colonel Redl (1931), as Vera Nikolayevna Elisabeth of Austria (1931), as Elisabeth of Austria The Congress Dances (1931), as The Countess Madame Bluebeard (1931), as Frau Erika Dankwarth The Woman from Monte Carlo (1932), as Lottie Corlaix The Dancer of Sanssouci (1932), as Barberina Campanini Thea Roland (1932), as Thea Roland Johannisnacht (1933), as Lisa Lers The Fugitive from Chicago (1934), as Eveline A Woman Who Knows What She Wants (1934), as Mona Cavallini (1934), as Lisa Behmer The Bird Seller (1935), as Electress Lady Windermere's Fan (1935), as Mrs. Erlynne The Higher Command (1935), as Madame Martin Augustus the Strong (1936), as Countess Aurore Königsmark Final Accord (1936), as Charlotte Garvenberg The Girl Irene (1936), as Jennifer Lawrence Fridericus (1937), as Marquise de Pompadour The Kreutzer Sonata (1937), as Jelaina Posdnyschew Strife Over the Boy Jo (1937), as Leonine Brackwieser Mystery About Beate (1938), as Beate Kaiserling Triad (1938), as Cornelia Contarini Maja zwischen zwei Ehen (1938), as Maja The Stars Shine (1938), as Herself Detours to Happiness (1939), as Hanna Bracht Friedrich Schiller (1940), as Franziska von Hohenheim Bismarck (1940), as Empress Eugénie The Little Residence (1942), as Herzogin von Lauffenburg Vienna 1910 (1943), as Maria Anschütz Music in Salzburg (1944), as Ursula Sanden Gaspary's Sons (1948), as Margot von Korff Don't Play with Love (1949), as Florentine Alvensleben A Day Will Come (1950), as Mme. Mombour Chased by the Devil (1950), as Frau Dakar The Secret of the Mountain Lake (1952), as Lamberta Red Roses, Red Lips, Red Wine (1953), as Gräfin Waldenberg His Royal Highness (1953), as Gräfin Löwenjoul Hubertus Castle (1954), as Baronin Kleesberg I Know What I'm Living For (1955), as Alice Lechaudier The Fisherman from Heiligensee (1955), as Baronin Hermine von Velden Roses in Autumn (1955), as Mrs. von Briest The Barrings (1955), as Thilde von Barring Crown Prince Rudolph's Last Love (1956), as Empress Elisabeth My Sixteen Sons (1956), as Frau Senator Giselius Confessions of Felix Krull (1957) Beneath the Palms on the Blue Sea (1957), as Contessa Celestina Morini The Buddenbrooks (1959, part 1, 2), as Elisabeth Buddenbrook The Strange Countess (1961), as Lady Leonora Moron Hotel Royal (1969, TV film), as The Maharani The Pedestrian (1973), as Frau Eschenlohr Karl May (1974), as Bertha von Suttner (1975, TV film), as Charmian Colston Tatort (1975, Episode: ""), as Koenen's Mother End of the Game (1975), as Gastmann's Mother The Standard (1977), as Archduchess Tales from the Vienna Woods (1979), as Helene (final film role)