Lucie Höflich

She was an actress, known for Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (1956), Sky Without Stars (1955) and Tartuffe (1925). She was married to Georg Anton Mayer and Emil Jannings.

In 1953 she was achieved with the "Bundesverdienstkreuz" for her lifework.

After 1950 she resided in Berlin, where she acted on the stage and taught at the acting academy. But she suffered greatly from age-related afflictions which hindered her in her work.

Distinguished character actress and acting teacher, on stage from the age of sixteen. First made a name for herself at the turn of the century as a dramatic actress in plays by Gerhart Hauptmann. Had lengthy spells in Berlin with Max Reinhardt at the Deutschen Theater (honorary member from 1946) and also at the Preußischen Staatstheater (1903-32). In silent films from 1913. Her second husband was star actor Emil Jannings, with whom she appeared on screen several times. From 1933-36, director (with Ilka Grüning) of the Staatlichen Schauspielschule in Berlin, subsequently ran her own acting academy. Director and professor at the acting school in Schwerin, 1946-50.

In 1937 Höflich was named a Staatschauspielerin and temporarily ended her active stage career.

Her biographies claim that she refused to appear on a German stage after the Nazi seizure of power. But a conflict with her growing film career seems more likely than a protest motivated by conscience: in the years 1934 to 1943 alone she acted in eighteen films, among them the National Socialist propaganda film Ohm Krüger.

With Ilka Grüning she headed the Staatliche Schauspielschule (State Acting Academy) in Berlin in 1933/34, and from 1936 on had her own studio for training young actors and actresses at the Volksbühne.

Lucie Höflich was an important pillar of the Reinhardt-Theater and attained the high point of her fame around 1920 as a great realistic character actress.

While still active on stage she appeared in her first film, the Gensdarm Möbius in 1913.

Höflich's first marriage (1910 - 1917) with Georg Anton Mayer produced a daughter, Ursula (*1911).

Examples of her appearances were as Kätchen in Heinrich von Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn in 1905 and as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 1907.

In 1903 Max Reinhardt recruited her to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin where she performed until 1932.

Lucie debuted at the age of 16 at the Bromberg City Theater and in 1901 moved to the Intime Theater von Nürnberg, and then to the Raimund-Theater in Vienna.

Lucie Höflich was born on February 20, 1883 in Hannover, Germany as Helene Lucie von Holwede.

Her stepfather, Georg Höflich (1854-1906), was an actor and director at the Berliner Schauspielhaus.