Louise Dumont

Dumont's bust in the Düsseldorf's Hofgarten. The bust was stolen in December 2012.

Louise Dumont (née Louise Maria Hubertine Heynen; 22 February 1862, in Cologne – 16 May 1932, in Düsseldorf) was a German actress and theater director.

Life

Louise Maria Hubertine Heynen, born on 22 February 1862 in Cologne near Neumarkt, was the second of eleven or twelve siblings.

In 1907, Louise Dumont married Gustav Lindemann. They separated in the 1920s, after which Dumont was attached to a number of young actresses, including Fita Benkhoff, Hanni Hoessrich and Luise Rainer. It has been presumed that she was bisexual.

Assessment

Louise Dumont is considered the 20th century successor to Friederike Caroline Neuber. She exerted less of a mimic-erotic fascination than a strong, convincing and defining gravity, which she understood as performing faithful service to the words of the author.

Dumont died in 1932 in Düsseldorf and was buried in the local cemetery. Her grave is decorated with a sculpture by Ernst Barlach. Her husband donated in her memory a necklace with a pearl-encircled topas that she had received as a present from Queen Charlotte of Württemberg, to be awarded to outstanding actresses during their lifetime. In 1976 she was featured on a postage stamp issued by the Deutsche Bundespost. The Louise-Dumont-Straße in Düsseldorf-Pempelfort was named after her.