West German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 972. Photo: T. von Mindszenty / Deutsche London. Hildegard Knef in Geständnis unter vier Augen/Confession Under Four Eyes (André Michel, 1954).
Rebellious, gravel-voiced actress, chanteuse and author Hildegard Knef (1925-2002) was one of the most important film stars of post-war Germany. She also appeared in foreign films and on Broadway, billed as Hildegard(e) Neff. Her outspokenness often caused unease in a country eager to please. Germany’s sole diva led a roller coaster life full of successes and suffering.
Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1925. Her parents were the Flemish tobacco merchant Hans Theodor Knef and his German wife Frieda Auguste Knef-Gröhn. Hildegard went to school to the Rückert-Lyzeum in Berlin-Schöneberg. In 1942, she began to work as an artist at the painting department of the Ufa Film Studio. A year later, she made a screentest and became an acting student at the Babelsberg Film Institute, Ufa's training program. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, including Die Brüder Noltenius/The Noltenius Brothers (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1945), Unter den Brücken/Under the Bridges (Helmut Käutner, 1945), and Frühlingsmelodie/Spring Melody (Hans Robert Bortfeld, 1945), but most were released after the war. To avoid being raped by the Soviet soldiers she dressed like a young man and was subsequently sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin where she played her first part on stage in the cabaret show 'Heute Abend um sechs' (Tonight at Six) with Viktor de Kowa. She had her breakthrough in the first film released after World War II in East Germany, Die Mörder sind unter uns/The Murderers Are Among Us (Wolfgang Staudte, 1946), produced by the communist DEFA-Studio, backed by the Russians. Her powerful performance as a Holocaust survivor amid the ruins of postwar Berlin made her immediately a star. Over 4 million East Germans went to the cinema to see it. She appeared also in the first West-German films Zwischen gestern und morgen/Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (Harald Braun, 1947) and Film ohne Titel/Film Without a Name (Rudolf Jugert, 1947) with Hans Söhnker, both backed by the Americans. In these films she symbolized war-shattered Germany and became ‘Berlin’s voice’ — learning to survive, stubbornly bouncing back and starting anew, without ever losing sight of the past. Film Ohne Titel/Film Without a Name became commercially the most successful film of 1948 in West Germany.
In 1948 Hildegard Knef appeared on a cover of Life magazine and studio mogul David O. Selznick of 20th Century-Fox invited her to come to Hollywood. He offered her a contract - with two conditions: she should change her name to Gilda Christian and should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. She refused both and returned temporarily to Germany. There she appeared in another influential role, Marina in Die Sünderin/The Sinner (Willi Forst, 1950), in which she performed the first (brief) nude scene in German cinema. The incident sparked one of the largest scandals in German film history and drew the criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, but also 7 million spectators. Her comment: "I can't understand all that tumult - five years after Auschwitz!" During the 1950s she became an internationally active star, who travelled between the USA and Europe. She appeared in minor roles in Hollywood productions like Decision Before Dawn (Anatole Litvak, 1951), Diplomatic Courier (Henry Hathaway, 1952) starring Tyrone Power, Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Henry King, 1952) starring Gregory Peck, and the film noir Night Without Sleep (Roy Ward Baker, 1952). In these films, she was billed as Hildegarde Neff, reportedly because Americans couldn't pronounce Knef. She also starred in such European films as Nachts auf den Straßen/Nights on the Road (Rudolf Jugert, 1951) with Hans Albers, Alraune/Mandrake (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1952) opposite Erich von Stroheim, the French production La fête à Henriette/Holiday for Henrietta (Julien Duvivier, 1952), Illusion in Moll/Illusion in a Minor Key (Rudolf Jugert, 1952) with Sybille Schmitz, the thriller The Man Between (Carol Reed, 1953) starring James Mason, and the flop Madeleine und der Legionär/Escape from Sahara (Wolfgang Staudte, 1958) with Bernhard Wicki. In total, she would appear in 49 feature films, 19 of which were non-German productions. She was also successful on stage, appearing in 15 plays. Her Broadway debut as Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Silk Stockings (1955-1956) is considered her greatest triumph – as she became the first German to succeed on Broadway. The New York Times wrote about her: "She gives an immensely skilful performance".
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hildegard Knef enjoyed success as a singer of German chansons, which she often co-wrote. The song she is best remembered for is 'Für mich soll's rote Rosen regnen' (It shall rain red roses for me). She is also known for her version of the song 'Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin' (I`ve got a suitcase left in Berlin...), the title of which is still often cited in articles and common speech throughout Germany. Among her other film credits was Pirate Jenny in a new version of Die Dreigroschenoper/The Threepenny Opera (Wolfgang Staudte, 1962), a victim of a serial killer in the black comedy Landru (Claude Chabrol, 1963), and Catherine the Great in Caterina di Russia/Catherine of Russia (Umberto Lenzi, 1963). She was sometimes compared to Marlene Dietrich, in that they both were, or were portrayed as, the liberated, self-confident woman. In Fedora (Billy Wilder, 1979) she played a character based on Dietrich and other legendary film stars. Besides acting, Hildegard Knef has published seven books. Her autobiography 'Der geschenkte Gaul - Bericht aus einem Leben' (The Gift Horse - Report of a Life) from 1970 is a candid, but not sensationalist, recount of her life in Germany during and after World War II. It became the best-selling German book after World War II. Her second book Das Urteil/The Verdict from 1975 was a moderate success. It was a no-nonsense account of her struggle with breast cancer. In 1999 her last film hit the screens, Eine fast perfekte Hochzeit/An Almost Perfect Wedding (Reinhard Schwabenitzky, 1999). That same year her last album was released, '17 Millimeter', and she made her last TV appearance, singing 'Zum Schluss...' (At the end…) on the German TV show Herman & Tietjen. Hildegard Knef endured more than 50 operations but her cancer-ridden and alcohol-wrecked body always bounced back. In 2002 she finally gave in. Aged 76, she died in Berlin, the city where she had moved back to after the German reunification. Her marriages to the American Kurt Hirsch and British actor David Cameron had ended in divorce. She was survived by her third husband, Paul von Schell, and her daughter with David Cameron, Christina (Tinta) Knef (1968).
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yancey (IMDb), World Press Review, BBC News, Hildegardknef.de (German), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
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German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5456/1,1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Amster, Berlin.
Tibor von Mindszenty (1899–?) started out as Hollywood actor Paul Vincenti. The ‘Hungarian Rudolph Valentino’ later became a Ufa star photographer in Berlin.
Tibor von Mindszenty was born in 1899 in Budapest, then Austria-Hungary. He was also known as Tibor Mindszenty and Tibor Mindszenthy and became known as Paul Vincenti in Hollywood. He spent his childhood in Italy, Vienna and Budapest. At the age of 17 , he was enlisted into the army and served in the First World War as an artillery lieutenant. His greatest passion was sports but in order to have a civilian position after he was discharged, he took a managerial post in his brother-in-law’s business. During a boat trip on the Danube, he met celebrated actress Sári Fedák. When the renowned artiste caught sight of the handsome, sporty young man, she thought Mindszenty was the spitting image of Rudolph Valentino. Valentino, who personified the first screen ideal of the Latin heart-throb, died unexpectedly at the age of 31 in August 1926. Fedák took on the challenge of building a star and clinch a lucrative deal by selling the Americans this Rudolph Valentino doppelgänger. She had screen tests made of Mindszenty at Corvin studio, and she took him to Angelo, the famous star photographer in Pest. A series of portraits published in Színházi Élet proved that Mindszenty could be the next Valentino. In November 1926, Mindszenty and Fedak set off for America. Mindszenty was initially contracted to First National film studio in New York, then in 1929 he joined Fox for a short time. First National’s PR team started to build the image of the new star. One of the most important elements of the campaign was that the actor was heralded as the scion of an ‘ancient Hungarian hussar family’. It is no mere coincidence that his first minor role was in the 1927 Hungarian-themed film The Stolen Bride directed by Alexander Korda and starring Billie Dove. Later on he appeared in The Love Mart (George Fitzmaurice, 1927) with Billie Dove and Gilbert Roland and he took the lead in the melodrama The Veiled Woman (Emmett J. Flynn, 1929). Mindszenty worked under the catchy stage name of Paul Vincenti from 1927.
When his contract expired, Tibor von Mindszenty returned to Europe. He settled in Berlin where he appeared in six films between 1929 and 1934. One of these was the Czech-German coproduced late silent film Kennst du das kleine Haus am Michigansee?/Do You Know That Little House on Lake Michigan? (Viktor Brumlík, Max W. Kimmich, 1929). The story is set in the United States but scenes around the picturesque Lake Michigan were actually shot in the High Tatras. In the film, Vincenti is a bored playboy whose only passion is water sports until he meets a pretty girl. Critics of the time praised the romantic atmosphere given by nature and Vincenti was deemed to be convincing as the handsome, tough character who was considered by Siegfried Kracauer, critic of Frankfurter Zeitung, to be “both sporty and erotic”. All his other films from the Berlin period have some Hungarian connection, either as regards the cast and crew or the subject matter. Géza von Bolváry directed Ein Tango für Dich (Géza von Bolváry , 1930) with Ernő Verebes and Tibor Halmay and Der Raub der Mona Lisa/The Theft of the Mona Lisa (Géza von Bolváry, 1931). Seitensprünge (1931), the second film directed by István Székely, was made on the basis of the screenplay by Károly Nóti and Lajos Bíró, screenwriters of the musical romance Mein Herz ruft nach Dir/My Heart Calls You (Carmine Gallone, 1934) were Ernst Marischka and Emeric Pressburger, and the editor was Eduard von Borsody. Mein Herz ruft nach Dir is about an opera company and it became famous because Márta Eggerth and Jan Kiepura – one of the most famous dream pairs of the screen – played together in it for the first time. Hilde von Stolz, who was born in Sighișoara (then part of Hungary), had a supporting role. Vincenti also played in Die Csikósbaroness (Jacob Fleck, Luise Fleck, 1930), one of the typical Hungarian themed German films of the early sound era. It tells the story of a love affair between a German baroness and a Hungarian hussar officer. The musical film shot in Hunnia Film Studio, Budapest, in Debrecen and on the Hortobágy. Ernő (Ernst) Verebes and Gretl Theimer play the other two lead roles. The film received mixed reviews from Hungarian audiences and critics.
Perhaps this reception contributed to the fact that in the second half of the 1930s, Tibor von Mindszenty decided to open a totally new chapter in his life. Having studied photography in America, he found that he preferred to work behind the camera in the German capital. He opened a photography studio and became a star photographer specialising in the fashionable trend of the era. Maybe he never forgot how much he owed photographer Angelo in Budapest because he also took his new profession extremely seriously. He worked on studio portraits and commercial photos primarily for Ufa film stars and magazines, and it is interesting that he signed off his works once again as ‘Mindszenty’ and ‘T. v. Mindszenty’. Soon he had trained himself as a true expert of the European star system and his photographs served as references for the studios. In 1943, at the request of Ufa, he returned to Hungary to make a photo series of local stars and he also received orders that if he came across suitable young talents, he should notify the Berlin centre. In an interview made in 1943, he said that he belonged to the circle of friends of directors Géza von Bolváry and József von Baky in Berlin. After the war, he continued working as a still photographer in Germany and during the 1950s he worked on such films as the romantic comedy Fanfaren der Liebe/Fanfares of Love (Kurt Hoffmann, 1951) starring Dieter Borsche, the musical comedy Geld aus der Luft/Money from the Air (Geza von Cziffra, 1955) with Lonny Kellner, and the crime drama Banditen der Autobahn/Bandits of the Highway (Geza von Cziffra, 1955) with Eva Ingeborg Scholz and Hans Christian Blech. During the early 1960s, Tibor von Mindszenty worked a production manager for German television.
Sources: Barkóczi Janka (National Film Institute Hungary), Filmportal.de and IMDb.
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West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G,m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 1635. Photo: Real / Rank-Film / v Mindszenty. Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Unternehmen Schlafsack/Operation Sleeping Bag (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1955).
On 21 March 2022, German film and television actress Eva Ingeborg Scholz (1928-2022) passed away. Since her East German debut in 1948, she played in more than 110 film and television productions. Scholz was 94.
Eva Ingeborg Scholz was born in 1928 in Brandenburg, Prussia. She attended the Max Reinhardt School and acted at the Schlosspark Theatre and the Renaissance Theatre from 1947 to 1950. From 1950 to 1953 she was engaged at the Komödie Berlin, after which she was part of the ensemble at the Münchner Kammerspiele. As an ensemble member, she covered both comedic and dramatic assignments. She made her film debut in the title role of the East German film 1-2-3 Corona (Hans Müller, 1948) opposite Lutz Moik. It was a post-war love story with a circus setting, filmed at Ufa's Babelsberg studio. I.S. Mowis at IMDb: 'Though diminutive and rather unimposing in stature, she had expressive eyes, and, as it turned out, possessed a strong on-screen presence. " From then on, she appeared regularly in films, including a performance as a young lodger in Peter Lorre's only directorial effort, the West-German drama Der Verlorene/The Lost One (1951). Scholz alternated leading roles in light comedies and operettas such as Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) and Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955)) with high profile supporting parts in drama. She did her best acting in films with a wartime theme, such as a supporting role opposite Curd Jürgens in Des Teufels General/The Devil's General (Helmut Käutner, 1955), based on the play by Carl Zuckmayer.
From the early 1960s, Eva Ingeborg Scholz appeared increasingly in television, where she remained active until the age of 90 years in 2018. She appeared in popular television Krimi series like Tatort, Derrick, Der Alte/The Old Fox and SOKO Stuttgart/Stuttgart Homicide. In 2018, she won the Deutscher Schauspielpreis (German Actors Award) for her supporting role in the Tatort episode Die Liebe, ein seltsames Spiel (2017). Eva-Ingeborg Scholz also worked as a dubbing artist and lent her voice to the title character of the animated film Cinderella (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson,
Hamilton Luske, 1950) and to Alice's sister in Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson,
Hamilton Luske, 1951). Among her later films are the Disney production Emil and the Detectives (Peter Tewksbury, 1964), based on the novel by Erich Kästner, in which she played Emil's mother, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Der amerikanische Soldat/The American Soldier (1970). One of her final films was the comedy Die Apothekerin/The Pharmacist (Rainer Kaufmann, 1997) with Katja Riemann. She was married twice. Her first husband was screenwriter Georg Hurdalek with whom she had a son, Stefan Hurdalek (1951). In 1953, she married actor Wilfried Seyferth but he died a year later in a car accident. Their daughter is actress Katharina Seyferth (1954). Eva Ingeborg Scholz lived and worked in Gräfelfing near Munich. She died in March 2022 at the age of 94.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.
Please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
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West-German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 1652. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Central Europa Film / Europa Film. Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955).
On 21 March 2022, German film and television actress Eva Ingeborg Scholz (1928-2022) passed away. Since her East German debut in 1948, she played in more than 110 film and television productions. Scholz was 94.
Eva Ingeborg Scholz was born in 1928 in Brandenburg, Prussia. She attended the Max Reinhardt School and acted at the Schlosspark Theatre and the Renaissance Theatre from 1947 to 1950. From 1950 to 1953 she was engaged at the Komödie Berlin, after which she was part of the ensemble at the Münchner Kammerspiele. As an ensemble member, she covered both comedic and dramatic assignments. She made her film debut in the title role of the East German film 1-2-3 Corona (Hans Müller, 1948) opposite Lutz Moik. It was a post-war love story with a circus setting, filmed at Ufa's Babelsberg studio. I.S. Mowis at IMDb: 'Though diminutive and rather unimposing in stature, she had expressive eyes, and, as it turned out, possessed a strong on-screen presence. " From then on, she appeared regularly in films, including a performance as a young lodger in Peter Lorre's only directorial effort, the West-German drama Der Verlorene/The Lost One (1951). Scholz alternated leading roles in light comedies and operettas such as Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) and Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955)) with high profile supporting parts in drama. She did her best acting in films with a wartime theme, such as a supporting role opposite Curd Jürgens in Des Teufels General/The Devil's General (Helmut Käutner, 1955), based on the play by Carl Zuckmayer.
From the early 1960s, Eva Ingeborg Scholz appeared increasingly in television, where she remained active until the age of 90 years in 2018. She appeared in popular television Krimi series like Tatort, Derrick, Der Alte/The Old Fox and SOKO Stuttgart/Stuttgart Homicide. In 2018, she won the Deutscher Schauspielpreis (German Actors Award) for her supporting role in the Tatort episode Die Liebe, ein seltsames Spiel (2017). Eva-Ingeborg Scholz also worked as a dubbing artist and lent her voice to the title character of the animated film Cinderella (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson,
Hamilton Luske, 1950) and to Alice's sister in Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson,
Hamilton Luske, 1951). Among her later films are the Disney production Emil and the Detectives (Peter Tewksbury, 1964), based on the novel by Erich Kästner, in which she played Emil's mother, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Der amerikanische Soldat/The American Soldier (1970). One of her final films was the comedy Die Apothekerin/The Pharmacist (Rainer Kaufmann, 1997) with Katja Riemann. She was married twice. Her first husband was screenwriter Georg Hurdalek with whom she had a son, Stefan Hurdalek (1951). In 1953, she married actor Wilfried Seyferth but he died a year later in a car accident. Their daughter is actress Katharina Seyferth (1954). Eva Ingeborg Scholz lived and worked in Gräfelfing near Munich. She died in March 2022 at the age of 94.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.
Please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
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East-German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach i.V., no. G 7C6. Photo: Real v. Mindszenty, 1956. Gustav Knuth in Keine Angst für grossen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).
Gustav Knuth (1901-1987) was a German actor who played folksy, good-natured characters in numerous films and TV series. After the Second World War, he took Swiss citizenship. He was a successful stage actor and starred in more than 120 films between 1935 and 1982. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most distinguished German TV actors.
Gustav Adolf Karl Friedrich Knuth was born in Braunschweig, in 1901. His parents the Reichsbahn conductor Christoph Karl Gustav Knuth,and Johanna Friederike Luise Hermine Knuth, née Jürges. Pushed by his father into a locksmith apprenticeship after primary school, he broke off this training and, financed by his sister Else, took acting lessons with the actor Casimir Paris in Braunschweig. Through his mediation, he received his first engagement at the Stadttheater Hildesheim in 1918. This was followed by the Stadttheater Harburg from 1919 to 1922. Between 1922 and 1925 he played at the Stadttheater Basel, from 1925 to 1933 at the Stadttheater Altona. From 1933 to 1936 he worked at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. Gustav Knuth was appointed state actor in 1935. A year later, he was contracted by the "Preußische Staatstheater" in Berlin, where he stayed until 1945. Since 1935 Knuth also appeared in front of the film camera. He made his film debut as a virile village blacksmith in Der Ammenkönig/The King of the Blackbirds (Hans Steinhoff, 1935). The film became a surprise success and was accompanied by a debate about the "new morals" in Nazi Germany. In the following years, he played mostly quite inconspicuous, plain, and somewhat awkward lovers. These films included Schatten über St. Pauli/Shadows Over St. Pauli (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1938) with Marieluise Claudius, the Krimi Der Vorhang fällt/The Curtain Falls (Georg Jacoby, 1939) starring Anneliese Uhlig, and the drama Zwischen Hamburg und Haiti/Between Hamburg and Haiti (Erich Waschneck, 1940). Knuth also appeared as a shy seaman in Helmut Käutner's Große Freiheit Nr. 7/Great Freedom No. 7 (1943). He considered his best film to be the melancholic Unter den Brücken/Under the bridges, also directed by Helmut Käutner, which was shot in 1944 but not shown until 1946.
Between 1945 and 1949 Knuth worked again at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, among other places. In 1946, the British occupying power appointed him as a representative of the cultural workers in the appointed citizenship of Hamburg. In the first elections to the Bürgerschaft in the same year, he stood as the leading candidate of the 'Freien Kulturpolitischen Bundes' party (Free Cultural-Political Alliance), but was unsuccessful and did not enter parliament. From 1949 he belonged to the ensemble of the Schauspielhaus Zurich. There he played together with Therese Giehse, among others. Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote the role of the scientist Beutler for Knuth in his play 'Die Physiker'. This play was staged for television in 1964 by Fritz Umgelter with Knuth and Giehse in the roles written for them. In the cinema, he made his comedic signature performances in the comedy Der fröhliche Weinberg/The Grapes Are Ripe (Erich Engel, 1952) and as bribery director Striese in Der Raub der Sabinerinnen/Theft of the Sabines (Kurt Hoffmann, 1954). He also starred in the Sissi trilogy as the grumpy but cheerful Duke Max in Bayern (Sissi's father), alongside Romy and Magda Schneider. Exceptional was his negative role as an arms smuggler in the drama Die Mücke/The Mosquito (Walter Reisch, 1954) starring Hilde Krahl. Furthermore, Knuth played the Puszta stationmaster in Hoffmann"s Ich denke oft an Piroschka/I Often Think of Piroschka (Kurt Hoffmann, 1955), motor carrier Karl John in Die Ratten/The Rats (Robert Siodmak, 1955) with Maria Schell, and the intrusive debaucher in Das kunstseidene Mädchen/The High Life (Julien Duvivier, 1959), starring Giulietta Masina. He transcended his roles with a witty lack of emotional commitment. He was also active from time to time as a radio play narrator. In 1953, for example, he played one of the leading roles as Philip Droste in the third Paul Temple multi-part 'Paul Temple und der Fall Vandyke' (Paul Temple and the Vandyke Case) by crime author Francis Durbridge, directed by Eduard Hermann.
With the breakthrough of television in the 1960s, Gustav Knuth became better known among the general public. As the veterinarian Dr. Hofer in the series Alle meine Tiere/All my animals (Otto Meyer, 1962-1963), he quickly became a public favourite. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most outstanding German TV actors, playing popular, good-natured characters in numerous films and series. He had further success with the family series Großer Mann, was nun?/Big man, what now? (Eugen York, 1967-1968). In the popular circus series Salto Mortale (Michael Braun, 1969-1972), he played the veteran trapeze performer Carlo Doria, the leader of a family of artists. The 26-part family series Drüben bei Lehmanns (Herbert Ballmann, 1970-1973) with Walter Gross and Brigitte Mira, was also very popular. In 1979 Knuth appeared as Gustav, the last cab driver with a horse-drawn carriage in Berlin in the late 1920s in the TV Mini-series Der eiserne Gustav/Iron Gustav (Wolfgang Staudte, 1979). He played his last role in the cinema in Der Bockerer (Franz Antel, 1981). Gustav Knuth was married to Gustl Busch. Their son Klaus (1935-2012) also became an actor. The marriage was dissolved in the 1930s. Then Gustav married his colleague Elisabeth Lennartz. The actress Nicole Knuth is his granddaughter. In 1974, Knuth published his memoirs 'Mit einem Lächeln im Knopfloch'. In 1977, he died from the effects of a heart attack in Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland. Gustav Knuth was 85. His last resting place is in the cemetery of Hinterriet in Küsnacht. He was awarded the Ernst Lubitsch Prize for his artistic performance in Der Lügner (1962). In 1967, 1968, and 1980, he received a Golden Bambi in each case, in 1970 a Silver Bambi. In 1976, he received the Goldene Kamera for his hosting of the celebrity talk show Künstlerstammtisch. For his long-standing and outstanding work in German film, he was awarded the "Goldene Filmband" in 1974.
Sources: Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
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