Hildegard Knef facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Hildegard Knef
Knef in 1969
Born	Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (1925-12-28)28 December 1925 Ulm, Württemberg, Germany
Died	1 February 2002(2002-02-01) (aged 76) Berlin, Germany
Occupation	Actress singer writer
Years active	1944–2001
Spouse(s)	Kurt Hirsch (1947–52) (divorced) David Palastanga (1962–76) (divorced) 1 child Paul von Schell (1977–2002) (her death)

Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (German: [ˈhɪl.də.ɡaʁt ˈkneːf]; 28 December 1925 – 1 February 2002) was a German actress, singer, and writer. She was billed in some English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff.

Early years

Hildegard Knef was born in Ulm in 1925. Her parents were Hans Theodor and Friede Augustine Knef. Her father, a decorated First World War veteran, died 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.

German film career

Knef appeared in several films before the fall of Nazi Germany, 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. De Kowa also directed Knef in other plays by Shakespeare, Pagnol, and George Abbott.

..... Knef stated that she didn't understand the tumult that the film was creating. ..... She also wrote, "I had the scandal, the producers got the money."

In 1948, she received the best-actress award from the Locarno Film Festival because of her role in the film Film Without a Title. Her singing career started in the 1960s once her film career was not going very well. She performed in television shows such as in episodes of Scarecrow and Mrs. King and in a 2000 documentary in which she was playing by herself Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song.

In the 1960s she appeared in a number of such low-budget films as The Lost Continent.

She appeared in the 1975 screen adaptation of the Hans Fallada novel, Every Man Dies Alone directed by Alfred Vohrer, released in English as Everyone Dies Alone in 1976, and for which she won an award for best actress at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, then Czechoslovakia.

During her career, she performed in over 50 films. Nineteen of her films were produced in other countries than Germany: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Spain.

Career in the United States

Knef's hand and footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood

David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood, but she refused to agree to the conditions of the contract which reportedly included changing her name to Gilda Christian and pretending to be Austrian rather than German. Knef was cast as Hilde in the Hollywood film Decision Before Dawn (1951), directed by Anatole Litvak and co-starring with Richard Basehart and Oskar Werner in a story about the later part of World War II.

The following year Knef's first husband, an American named Kurt Hirsch, encouraged her to try again for success in the U.S. She changed her name from Knef to Neff, but was only offered a supporting role in The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), an adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway short story.

.....

Finally, in 1955, Knef was offered a starring role in the Broadway musical Silk Stockings by Cole Porter, which was based on the 1939 film Ninotchka, which had starred Greta Garbo in the title role. Knef had acted in at least 30 films in the United States and Europe, but her triumph came in New York when she played Ninotchka, an unemotional Soviet commissar. The New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson described her rendition as "an immensely skillful performance."

Singer

In the 1960s, Knef took a break from acting and started writing song lyrics. In 1963 she started a concert and recording career, and she surprised her audiences with the deep, smoky quality of her voice and with lyrics that were written by herself. Fans around the world rallied in her support as she defeated cancer several times. She returned to Berlin after the reunification. In her peak, an entertainment columnist called her the "willowy blonde" who had a "dusty voice" and a "generous mouth".

The song she is mostly remembered for is "Für mich soll's rote Rosen regnen" ("Red roses are to rain for me"). She is also known for her version of the songs "Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin" ("I still have a suitcase in Berlin") and "Mackie Messer" ("Mack the Knife"). She sold more than three million records in total.

She launched 23 original albums which counted for 320 different songs. She wrote the lyrics for 130 songs herself.

Personal life

Knef was married three times and divorced twice. Her first marriage was in 1947 to Kurt Hirsch, a U.S. information officer. They divorced in 1952. The second time she married the actor and record producer David Anthony Palastanga, on 30 June 1962. Knef had a daughter with him, Christina Antonia. When Knef was 47, she wrote a letter for her five-year-old daughter. She wrote what she had learned of beauty, of her grandfather's legacy about anti-human beings, of unconditional love and truth. She also wrote that the only mission of humans in this world was to serve in one form or other because she had noticed that those who didn't serve ended up as slaves. When she died, she was still married to her third husband, Paul von Schell.

Knef died at the age of 76 of a lung infection in Berlin, where she had moved after the German reunification. She smoked heavily for most of her life and suffered from emphysema.

Selected filmography

See also

In Spanish: Hildegard Knef para niños