20th-century German women singers

Charlotte_Ander

Charlotte Ander (born Charlotte Andersch, 14 August 1902 – 5 August 1969) was a German actress.
She was born in Berlin, the daughter of German stage/film couple Rudolf Andersch and Ida Perry. Ander was trained at the Berliner Staatstheater. Ander was a star in the silent era before making the transition to sound. Her film career started in 1920 with the film Die letzte Stunde and Danton (1921). Innumerable starring roles in silent movies and early talkies with super-stars Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Hans Albers followed.
On 21 February 1927, she created the role of Mascha in the world premiere of Der Zarewitsch by Franz Lehar at the Deutsche Künstler Theater in Berlin, alongside Rita Georg and Richard Tauber, with the composer conducting.
She celebrated her greatest success in 1933 with the role of the record shop assistant Nina in Ein Lied geht um die Welt aka A Song Goes Around the World in which she starred with then popular singer Joseph Schmidt and her mother, Ida Perry. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, because she was not reinrassig or pure-blood, it became difficult for Ander to find work. She went to England and made at least two films including Maid Happy (1933), but soon found roles as hard, or harder, to find in England than they had been in Germany.
Despite the difficult conditions for her in Nazi Germany, Ander returned. She could make a living although not often in front of the cameras. Her only two Nazi era German films were Wie einst im Mai (1938) and Anton the Last (1939). Here fortunes were somewhat better on the stage where she worked until 1950 before returning to the screen in The Benthin Family. Her final film was Das tanzende Herz (1953). She died in West Berlin.

Dora_Gerson

Dora Gerson (born Dorothea Gerson; 23 March 1899 – 14 February 1943) was a German cabaret singer and stage and motion picture actress of the silent film era. She was murdered at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Gussy_Holl

Auguste Marie Christine Holl (22 February 1888 – 16 July 1966) was a German actress and singer. Holl was briefly a silent film star during the early Weimar Republic, appearing in productions such as F. W. Murnau's Desire (1921). As of 2021, only one of her films survives.

Claire_Waldoff

Claire Waldoff (21 October 1884 – 22 January 1957), born Clara Wortmann, was a German singer. She was a famous kabarett singer and entertainer in Berlin during the 1910s to the 1930s, chiefly known for performing ironic songs in the Berlin dialect and with lesbian undertones and themes.

Marion_Michael

Marion Michael (17 October 1940 – 13 October 2007) was a German film actress and singer. She was best known for her role in the 1956 film Liane, Jungle Goddess. She was also the second German actress to appear nude on film, after Hildegard Knef who starred in the German film The Sinner in the 1950s.Michael was born Marion Ilonka Michaela Delonge in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). She was selected for the role of Liane in Liane, Jungle Goddess out of 12,000 prospective actresses. She was only 15 at the time of the filming, which took place on location in Africa, and she controversially appeared topless during the first half of the movie. The movie was a box office success. However, none of her following 10 films over the next six years were as successful.Michael suffered injuries in a car accident during this time period. She returned to acting, but stopped again in 1965. She suffered a bout of depression and, unusually, moved from West Germany to Communist East Germany.Michael sometimes returned to film and television acting later in her life, but only rarely. However, despite her lack of screen time after the 1960s, she remained a well known German film icon. Her last onscreen appearance was in a 1996 German television musical about her life, entitled Liane.Michael died of heart failure in Gartz, Brandenburg, four days shy of her 67th birthday.