Horney, Brigitte (1911–1988)

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Horney, Brigitte (1911–1988)

German actress and major film star who also enjoyed a considerable following abroad. Pronunciation: HORN-eye. Born in Berlin, Germany, on March 29, 1911; died of heart failure after a two year bout with cancer in Hamburg, Germany, on July 27, 1988; daughter of Oscar Horney and Karen (Danielsen) Horney (1885–1952, the prominent psychoanalyst); married Konstantin Irmen-Tschet; married Hanns Swarzenski (curator for the Decorative Arts at the Boston Museum for Fine Arts), c. 1953.

Selected filmography:

Abschied (Farewell, 1930); Ein Mann will nach Deutschland (A Man Wants to Reach Germany, 1934); Liebe, Tod und Teufel (Love, Death, and the Devil, 1934); Savoy-Hotel 217 (1936); Befreite Hände (Unfettered Hands, 1939); Feinde (Enemies, 1941); Das Mädchen von Fanö (The Girl from Fanö, 1941); Münchhausen (The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen, 1943); Am Ende der Welt (At the End of the World, 1944). Began screen career in 1930 and with some interruptions kept working until the last weeks of her life, starring in a popular West German television series,"Das Erbe der Guldenburgs" (Legacy of the Guldenburgs).

Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1911, three years before the start of World War I, Brigitte Horney grew up in a family of social prominence and affluence which valued intellectual and professional achievements. Her father was a physician; her mother was Karen Horney who in later years became one of the leading psychoanalysts in the world. After completing secondary school, Brigitte—nicknamed "Biggy" by her family and friends—began preparing for an acting career. To gain admittance to Berlin's prestigious Academy of Dramatic Arts, one had to perform at the Deutsches Theater in the presence of the world-famous director Max Reinhardt. Not only was Horney admitted, but she was presented with a prize by Reinhardt. In the summer of 1930, she took a screen test at the vast UFA studios in the suburbs of Berlin. Awarded a contract, she appeared that year as a frustrated sales clerk in her first film, Abschied (Farewell). Within a few years, both the film's director, Robert Siodmak, and the author of its screenplay, Billy Wilder, would flee a Nazi-ruled Germany.

Impressed by Horney's acting in Abschied, UFA's management offered her a one-year contract, but she turned it down, saying she did not feel ready to appear in any more film roles. Instead, she concentrated on gaining acting experience by performing on stage at Berlin's Volksbühne (People's Theater). Not until 1934, by which time Germany had become a Nazi dictatorship, did Horney feel ready to stand in front of a film camera again. By this time, she had gathered a growing number of fans who were entranced by her husky voice, high cheekbones, thick black hair, and dark eyes. The film she starred in, Ein Mann will nach Deutschland (A Man Wants to Go to Germany), was laden with Nazi propaganda, telling an improbable tale of a wife's wait for her husband to return to the Third Reich from South America where he had been employed as an engineer. Many moviegoers paid scant attention to the plot, enjoying instead Horney's stunning appearance and her intense, expressive acting style. Some filmgoers detected in her work that indefinable "something" that Marlene Dietrich —who had already decamped for Hollywood—possessed.

Horney made a number of films in the 1930s, virtually all of which proved to be immensely popular with the German public. In Savoy-Hotel 217 (1936), set in Tsarist Russia on the eve of World War I, she starred in a tragic tale of love and intrigue. Film critics praised her performance, describing her as "the gleaming jewel who lights up the entire film" and as an actress who played her part "with an intensity that at times is almost painful." In a film released during the early months of World War II, Horney again starred in a vehicle that was highly successful with the German public, Befreite Hände (Unfettered Hands). This 1939 film, the story of a talented farm girl who finds both artistic maturity and love, received praise from critics as well as the public. In December 1939, the reviewer for the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten wrote: "Brigitte Horney's performance alone would make it worth seeing."

Released in January 1941, Das Mädchen von Fanö (The Girl from Fanö) had an unusual story and setting, taking place on the Danish isle of Fanö in the storm-swept North Sea. Once again Horney's acting received rave reviews, as did that of her handsome co-star, Joachim Gottschalk. The tragic fate of this film star would never be forgotten by Horney, who greatly respected him both as an artist and as a person. Faced with the impending deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp of his son Michael and wife Meta Gottschalk , who under German law was considered to be Jewish despite her conversion to Christianity, Joachim pleaded to accompany them. When he was denied, the Gottschalks fed their son a fatal dose of sleeping pills, then committed suicide by turning on the gas in the kitchen stove. News of the Gottschalk family suicide was kept secret from the German public by propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, but word of the tragedy spread quickly through Berlin's motion-picture community. After initial outbursts of shock and rage, most decided to keep their feelings to themselves in view of the prevalence of Gestapo informers and the fact that the spreading of rumors could easily land one in a concentration camp. Only a handful of Gottschalk's close friends, including Brigitte Horney, Ruth Hellberg , as well as Gustav Knuth and his wife Elisabeth Lennartz , showed up for the funeral, which took place at the Stahnsdorf cemetery in the outskirts of Berlin. Gestapo agents were ever present in the vicinity of the freshly dug graves. Easily visible behind trees and shrubs, they took photographs of all who attended.

Shot in Agfacolor, Horney's next film Münchhausen (1943) was a cinematic extravaganza more resembling a Hollywood film than one produced in Nazi Germany. Almost two years in the making, it was a technical tour de force that included trick photography, elaborate special effects, and shots of Meissen china and gold tableware that had been borrowed from museums. To film a breathtaking regatta, the film crew went to Venice. Horney's performance, in which she portrayed Catherine II the Great of Russia, received the usual rave reviews.

Starting in March 1944, when it was clear that Hitler had lost the war, Horney began work on the aptly titled Am Ende der Welt (At the End of the World), which told the story of a landowner's daughter and her dream of opening a cabaret (a plan she drops after realizing that to do so she would have to cut down the woods she loved as a child). Almost daily Allied bombing raids slowed down the production, and by the time the film was in the can, Horney was in poor health. In December 1944, the film was banned by Joseph Goebbels, and a few weeks later, in January 1945, Horney fled to Switzerland.

Her health remained fragile for some time after her arrival in Switzerland, as she struggled with pneumonia, asthma and other problems. In 1946, some news stories reported falsely that she had died in a Swiss sanatorium. In time, her health was restored, and Horney began appearing on the Zurich stage, including starring roles in plays by such contemporary playwrights as Max Frisch and Jean-Paul Sartre. After the war, Horney resumed long-severed contact with her famous mother, who had left Germany in 1932, and whose work was never recognized in the Third Reich where psychoanalysis had been regarded as "a Jewish swindle." By the late 1940s, Horney was living in the United States, and in 1951 she married her second husband, Boston art curator Hanns Swarzenski. After Karen Horney's death in 1952, Brigitte chose to live permanently in the United States and eventually received dual West German-United States citizenship.

By the late 1950s, Horney was returning to West Germany on a regular basis to appear in television dramas, some of which had Cold War political colorations, such as the 1960 anti-Soviet war movie "Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen" (Night Fell on Gotenhafen). Among the more intriguing roles she played was that of Aunt Polly in a 1980 combined German-language version of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Determined not to let either her age or failing health keep her from working, during the last years of her life she starred in a highly popular West German television series, "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs" (Legacy of the Guldenburgs), in which she portrayed the matriarch of a German brewing dynasty. Although she was now battling cancer, Brigitte Horney refused to stop acting; she spent her nights at a local hospital and worked in the daytime filming on the Studio Hamburg set of the highly rated series. She died of a heart attack in Hamburg on July 27, 1988.