Brigitte Helm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image

Brigitte Helm (born Brigitte Gisela Eva Schittenhelm, 17 March 1908 – 11 June 1996) was a German actress, best remembered for her dual role as Maria and her double named Futura, in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film, Metropolis.

Early life

Brigitte Gisela Eva Schittenhelm was born on 17 March 1908 in Berlin, the daughter of Gretchen Gertrud Martha Schittenhelm (née Tews; 1877–1955) and merchant Edwin Alexander Johannes Schittenhelm (1871–1913).Template:Fact

Helm took an interest in acting as a child, and by age 12 was taking the lead in school plays.[1]

Career

Helm's first movie role was that of Maria in Metropolis, which she began work on while only 17 years old. She signed a ten-year contract with UFA in 1925.[2] After Metropolis, Helm made over 30 other films, including talking pictures, before retiring in 1935. Her other appearances include The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), Alraune (1928), L'Argent (1928), Gloria (1931), The Blue Danube (1932), L'Atlantide (1932) and Gold (1934). Helm was considered for the title role in Bride of Frankenstein before Elsa Lanchester was given the role.

Personal life and death

Helm was involved in several traffic accidents, and was briefly imprisoned.[3][4] According to the Nazi Party's Press Chief Obergruppenführer Otto Dietrich's book, The Hitler I Knew, Adolf Hitler saw that manslaughter charges against her from an automobile accident were dropped.[5]

Helm married her second husband, Dr. Hugo Kunheim, an industrialist, after her film contract expired in 1935.[6][7] Helm stated that she retired from films because she was "...disgusted with the Nazi takeover of the film industry..."[8] In 1935, she moved to Switzerland, where she had four children with Kunheim. In her later years, she refused to grant any interviews concerning her film career.Template:Fact

Helm died 11 June 1996 in Ascona, Switzerland.[3]

Selected filmography

References

Notes

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

  1. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. Staedeli, Thomas. Portrait of the actress Brigitte Helm Template:Webarchive. Cyranos.ch. Retrieved on 2013-11-02.
  5. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Further reading

  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

External links

Template:Authority control