Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (German: [ˈhɪl.dÉ™.É¡aÊ t ˈkneË f]
(listen); 28 December 1925 â€" 1 February 2002) was a German actress,
voice actress, singer, and writer. She was billed in some
English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff.Hildegard
Knef was born in Ulm. Her parents were Hans Theodor and Friede
Augustine Knef. Her father, a decorated First World War veteran, died
of syphilis when she was only six months old, and her mother moved to
Berlin and worked in a factory. Knef began studying acting at age 14
in 1940. She left school at 15 to become an apprentice animator with
Universum Film AG. After she had a successful screen test, she went to
the State Film School at Babelsberg, Berlin, where she studied acting,
ballet, and elocution. Joseph Goebbels, who was Hitler's propaganda
minister, wrote to her and asked to meet her, but Knef's friends
wanted her to stay away from him.Knef appeared in several films before
the fall of the Third Reich, but most were released only afterward.
During the Battle of Berlin she dressed as a soldier to stay with her
lover Ewald von Demandowsky, and joined him in the defence of
Schmargendorf. The Soviets captured her and sent her to a prison camp.
Her fellow prisoners helped her escape and return to Berlin. Von
Demandowsky was executed by the Russians on 7 October 1946, but before
that he secured for Knef the protection of the well-known character
actor Viktor de Kowa in Berlin. De Kowa gave her the opportunity to be
a mistress of ceremonies in the theatre that he had opened. Knef also
got a part in Marcel Pagnol's Marius, which was directed by Boleslaw
Barlog and proved one of the German theatre's great plays. De Kowa
also directed Knef in other plays by Shakespeare, Pagnol, and George
Abbott.Her two best known film roles were "Susanne Wallner" in
Wolfgang Staudte's film Die Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers Are
Among Us), produced in 1946 by the East German state film company, and
the first film released after the Second World War in East Germany;
and "Marina" in Die Sünderin (The Sinner), in which she performed a
brief nude scene, the first in German film history, which caused a
scandal in 1950. The film was also criticised by the Catholic Church,
which protested against the nude scene. Knef stated that she didn't
understand the tumult that the film was creating. She wrote that it
was totally absurd that people reacted in that manner and made a
scandal because of her nudity as Germany was a country that had
created Auschwitz and had caused so much horror. She also wrote, "I
had the scandal, the producers got the money." Hildegard Knef Biography, Weight & Height, Age, Nationality & Ethnicity
Subscribe by Email
Follow Updates Articles from This Blog via Email