Brigitte Mira

Brigitte Mira

Brigitte Mira (20 April 1910 – 8 March 2005) was a German actress. She worked in both theater and film, later in her career with Rainer Werner Fassbinder on many occasions.

Believed to have been born in Hamburg, she moved early on to Berlin. Brigitte Mira's mother was German while her father was Russian Jewish. During the Nazi era, Mira took part in the propaganda series Liese und Miese. She played Miese (germ. bad one) –- the bad role model according to Nazi ideology—who listened to enemy radio stations and stockpiled rationed food. But her acting skills turned the "bad" character she portrayed into a likeable one. The series was soon cancelled for being counter productive. The propaganda directors did not know that Mira was half-Jewish, for she had false papers. Even though she insisted on her naivete as a young woman and the fact she had to conceal her origins, she was criticized later by some for taking part in these ads at all.

Notable performances include Emmi Kurowski in Fear Eats the Soul (1974), a role for which she won a German Film Award. In the 1980s Mira achieved another big success with the television series Drei Damen vom Grill. She appeared in the 1991 Berlin stage production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

Selected filmography

• The Star of Santa Clara (1958)
• The Tenderness of Wolves (Ulli Lommel 1973)
• Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1974)
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog 1974)
• Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1974)
• Fox and His Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1975)
• de (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1975)
• Satan's Brew (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1976)
• Chinese Roulette (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1976)
• Derrick – Season 6, Episode 12: "Ein Todesengel" (1979)
• Berlin Alexanderplatz – TV mini-series (1980)
• Lili Marleen (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1981)
• Drei Damen vom Grill – TV series (1976-1991)

External links

• Brigitte Mira at the Internet Movie Database
• Brigitte Mira: Character actor who epitomised the spirit of old Berlin – The Guardian, 2005-03-25. Retrieved on 2010-04-21.