Zarah Leander
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Zarah Leander (March 15, 1907 – June 23, 1981) was a Swedish actress and singer. She became particularly famous throughout the German speaking countries and Scandinavia for her powerful singing voice and moody romantic songs. She is also noted for having been the leading female star of Nazi-Germany's film industry.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Beginnings
She was born Zarah Stina Hedberg in Karlstad, and died in Stockholm. While Zarah Leander's career in the Third Reich has been criticized, rumors also falsely implied that Zarah was of Jewish heritage. According to her son Göran, his mother's parents, and going back through generations, were from the Swedish provinces of Dalarna and Värmland.
Although Zarah Leander studied piano and violin already as a small child, and sang on stage for the first time at the age of six, she made a serious attempt at an ordinary life. As a teenager she lived two years in Riga (1922–1924), learned the then most important international language, German, took up work as a secretary, married Nils Leander (1926), and had two children (1927 & 1929). However, in 1929 she was engaged, as an amateur, in a touring cabaret by the leading entertainer and producer Ernst Rolf and for the first time sang "Vill ni se en stjärna," ('Do you want to see a star?') which soon would become her signature tune.
In 1930, she participated in four cabarets in the capital, Stockholm, made her first records, including a cover of Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again," and played a part in a film. However, it was as Hanna Glavari in Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow that she had her definitive break-through (1931). By then she had divorced Nils Leander. In the following years, she embarked on a splendid career and could make a decent living as a popular artist on stage and in film in Scandinavia. Her fame brought her proposals also from the European continent and from Hollywood, where a number of Swedish actors and directors were working.
Zarah Leander opted for an international career on the European continent. As a mother of two school-age children, she ruled out a move to America. In her view it was, most of all, too insecure. She feared the consequences, should she bring the children with her such a great distance and subsequently be unable to find employment. Despite the political situation, Austria and Germany were much closer, and Leander was already well-versed in German.
A second breakthrough, by contemporary measures her international debut, was the world premiere (1936) of Axel an der Himmelstür at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, directed by Max Hansen. It was a parody on Hollywood and not the least a parody of the German Marlene Dietrich, who had fled a Europe marked by Mussolini's, Stalin's and Hitler's stars. It was followed by the Austrian film Premiere, in which she played the role of a successful cabaret star.
[edit] The UFA star
In 1936, she landed a contract with UFA in Berlin. She became known as an extraordinarily tough negotiator, demanding influence, high salaries and half of it paid in Swedish kronor to a bank in Stockholm. A stupefied Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels dubbed her "Enemy of Germany", but as a leading film star at UFA, she participated in ten films, most of them great successes, and great contributions to the Third Reich's propaganda, as a counterweight to the international isolation and criticism that not the least Swedish newspapers demonstrated. However, unlike other film stars at the time, such as Olga Chekhova, Leander neither socialized with leading party members nor took part in official Nazi party functions. (Both actresses are rumored to have been Communist spies.)
Zarah Leander played roles with, basically, the same personality in all her German films; some said she played herself. Hers was the role of a femme fatale, independently minded, beautiful, passionate and self-confident. Although most of her songs had a melancholic flair, some had a frivolous undertext, or could at least be interpreted that way. In 1942, in the midst of a burning war, Zarah scored the two biggest hits of her recording career- in her signature deep voice, she sang her anthems of hope and survival; "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" ('That is not the end of the world') and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ('I know that someday a miracle will happen'). These two songs in particular are often included in contemporary documentaries as obvious examples of effective Nazi propaganda at work; however, it should also be noted that Zarah's performance on these tracks, along with countless other hits she had all over Europe, was nothing short of extraordinary and unquestionably struck a chord with the German people. Although no exact record sales numbers exist, it is likely that she was among Europe's best-selling recording artists in the years prior to 1945. Zarah herself was quick to point out in later years that what made her a fortune was indeed not her salary from Ufa, but the royalties from the records she released (Zarah Leander; Zarah's minnen (Zarah's memories), autobiography, Bonniers publishing, Stockholm 1972). "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" was also the song on which New wave singer Nina Hagen (who grew up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and as a child had idolized Leander) based her 1983 hit "Zarah" on, in a tribute to her idol.
[edit] Return to Sweden
Her last film in Nazi Germany premiered on March 3, 1943. Her villa in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Grunewald was hit in an air raid, and the increasingly desperate Nazis pressured her to apply for German citizenship. At this point she decided to break her contract with Ufa, leave Germany, and retreat to Sweden, where she had bought a mansion at Lönö, not far from Stockholm.
After the Wehrmacht's defeat in the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad, public opinion in Sweden, the government of which remained officially neutral throughout the war, nonetheless shifted towards criticism of the Nazis, and people's sympathies were increasingly pro-Allies and pro-American. Zarah Leander had been far too extensively associated with Nazi propaganda, and as a result was shunned. But gradually she managed to land engagements on the Swedish stage. After the war she did eventually return to tour Germany and Austria, giving concerts, making new records and acting in musicals. Her comeback found an eager audience among pre-war generations who had never forgotten her. She appeared in a number of films and television shows, but she would never regain the popularity she had enjoyed before and into the first years of World War II. In 1981, after having retired from show business, she died in Stockholm of a stroke.
After the war Zarah Leander was often questioned about her years in Nazi Germany. Though she would willingly talk about her past, she stubbornly rejected allegations of her having had sympathy for the Nazi regime. She claimed that her position as a German film superstar merely had been that of an entertainer working to please an enthusiastic audience in a difficult time. She repeatedly described herself as a political idiot.
In 2003 a bronze statue was raised in Zarah Leander's hometown Karlstad at the Opera house of Värmland where Zarah first began her career. After many years of discussions, the town government at last accepted this statue on behalf of the first Swedish local Zarah Leander Society. Many great Swedish artists celebrated on that day, but nothing further has been done to profile Karlstad as the birthplace of Zarah Leander.[citation needed]
[edit] Filmografie
- 1930 – Dantes Mysterier, with Eric Abrahamson, Elisabeth Frisk, Gustaf Lövås
- 1931 – Falska Millionären, with Sture Lagerwall, Fridolf Rhudin
- 1935 – Äktenskapsleken, with Einar Axelsson, Karl Gerhard, Elsa Carlsson
- 1936 – Premiere (her first film in German), with Karl Martell, Attila Hörbiger, Theo Lingen
- 1937 – Zu neuen Ufern, with Willy Birgel, Viktor Staal, Carola Höhn, Erich Ziegel, Hilde von Stolz
- 1937 – La Habanera, with Ferdinand Marian, Karl Martell, Paul Bildt, Edwin Juergenssen, Werner Finck
- 1938 – Heimat, with Heinrich George, Ruth Hellberg, Lina Carstens, Paul Hörbiger, Leo Slezak
- 1938 – Der Blaufuchs, with Willy Birgel, Paul Hörbiger, Jane Tilden, Karl Schönböck, Rudolf Platte
- 1939 – Es war eine rauschende Ballnacht, with Marika Rökk, Paul Dahlke, Aribert Wäscher
- 1939 – Das Lied der Wüste, with Gustav Knuth, Friedrich Domin, Herbert Wilk, Franz Schafheitlin
- 1940 – Das Herz der Königin, with Willy Birgel, Axel von Ambesser, Will Quadflieg, Margot Hielscher
- 1941 – Der Weg ins Freie, with Hans Stüwe, Agnes Windeck, Siegfried Breuer, Hedwig Wangel
- 1942 – Die große Liebe, with Viktor Staal, Paul Hörbiger, Grethe Weiser, Wolfgang Preiß
- 1942 – Damals, with Hans Stüwe, Rossano Brazzi, Karl Martell, Hilde Körber, Otto Graf
- 1950 – Gabriela, with Siegfried Breuer, Carl Raddatz, Grethe Weiser, Gunnar Möller
- 1952 – Cuba Cabana, with O. W. Fischer, Paul Hartmann, Hans Richter, Eduard Linkers, Karl Meixner, Werner Lieven
- 1953 – Ave Maria, with Hans Stüwe, Marianne Hold, Hilde Körber, Berta Drews, Carl Wery
- 1954 – Bei Dir war es immer so schön, with Willi Forst, Heinz Drache, Sonja Ziemann, Margot Hielscher
- 1959 – Der blaue Nachtfalter, with Christian Wolff, Marina Petrowa, Paul Hartmann, Werner Hinz
- 1964 – Das Blaue vom Himmel (TV-Film), with Karin Baal, Toni Sailer, Carlos Werner
- 1966 – Das gewisse Etwas der Frauen, with Nadja Tiller, Anita Ekberg, Romina Power, Robert Hoffmann, Michèle Mercier
[edit] Operettas and musicals
- 1931 Franz Lehár, Die lustige Witwe
- 1936 Ralph Benatzky, Axel an der Himmelstür (as Gloria Mills)
- 1958 Ernst Nebhut, Peter Kreuder, Madame Scandaleuse (as Helene)
- 1960 Oscar Straus, Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will (as Manon Cavallini)
- 1964 Karl Farkas u. Peter Kreuder, Lady aus Paris (as Mrs. Erlynne)
- 1968 Peter Thomas, Ika Schafheitlin, Helmuth Gauer, Wodka für die Königin (as Königin Aureliana)
- 1975 Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler, Das Lächeln einer Sommernacht (as Madame Arnfeldt)
[edit] References
- Ascheid, Antje. Hitler's heroines : stardom and womanhood in Nazi cinema. Philadelphia, Pa. : Temple University Press, 2003
- Carter, Erica. Dietrich's ghosts : the sublime and the beautiful in Third Reich film. London : BFI Publishing, 2004
- Seiler, Paul. Ich bin eine Stimme. LinkBerlin : Ullstein, 1997
[edit] Autobiography
- Es war so wunderbar. Mein Leben. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe. 1973. ISBN 3-455-04090-X

