Maria Forescu

Maria Forescu
File:Marie Forescu 1895.jpg
Born	Maria Füllenbaum (1875-01-15)15 January 1875 Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary
Died	Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany
Occupation	Film actress
Years active	1913–1933

Maria Forescu (15 January 1875 – 23 November 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian-born German opera singer and film actress. During the silent and talkies era of the German cinema, she appeared in several movies as a supporting actress. When Adolf Hitler came to power, Forescu, like other Jews of that period, was barred from her profession. She died in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Biography

Forescu was born Maria Füllenbaum on 15 January 1875, in Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary. She attended a boarding school in Paris. She studied singing, music and drama at the Prague Conservatory. Around the turn of the century, she debuted as an operetta singer and soon became a well known member of the renowned Viennese Carl Theater. She also performed in several of the tours organized by the theater throughout Europe. Then she went to Berlin, where she appeared at the theater of the West, at the Operetta Theater, and the Metropolitan Theater. She made her film acting debut in 1911 with the Charles Paulus-directed Die Pflicht. She left singing in 1915 to concentrate on her film acting career. She mainly appeared as a supporting actress. After the advent of the talkies she acted in several films of her friend Harry Piel. She had played the character of Yelina in the crime film Marizza, genannt die Schmuggler-Madonna. The most popular films in which Maria Forescu acted were the Gerhard Lamprecht-directed Zwischen Nacht und Morgen and the Hans Behrendt-directed Danton (both 1931). In the 1929 film Der Sittenrichter. § 218. Eine wahre Begebenheit, Forescu played the woman who aborted the heroine's child. The film was considered controversial for depicting the topic of abortion. She also starred in the 1920 silent film The Women House of Brescia. The film was rejected by the British Board of Film Classification.

In 1932, after filming Das erste Recht des Kindes (directed by Fritz Wendhausen), her career was cut short by the new laws made by the Nazi party. She was deprived of living a respected life and was prohibited from engaging in any professional activities. Forescu who was of Jewish origin was expelled from the Reich Student Council film in 1938. After the expulsion and the rising hatred against the Jews she took refuge with Maria Hirschburg on the Motzstrasse in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. She died in the Buchenwald concentration camp on 23 November 1943. Throughout her career she had acted in approximately 160 films.

Selected filmography

• The Story of Dida Ibsen (1918)
• Peer Gynt (1919)
• The Dancer (1919)
• The Stranger from Alster Street (1921)
• Marizza (1922)
• Lola Montez, the King's Dancer (1922)
• Esterella (1923)
• A Dangerous Game (1924)
• The Fake Emir (1924)
• The King and the Girl (1925)
• Joyless Street (1925)
• The Hanseatics (1925)
• The Adventures of Sybil Brent (1925)
• Slums of Berlin (1925)
• People to Each Other (1926)
• Should We Be Silent? (1926)
• Love's Joys and Woes (1926)
• White Slave Traffic (1926)
• The Gypsy Baron (1927)
• Bigamie (1927)
• Valencia (1927)
• The Vice of Humanity (1927)
• The Bordellos of Algiers (1927)
• Two Brothers (1927)
• A Crazy Night (1927)
• The False Prince (1927)
• Anastasia, the False Czar's Daughter (1928)
• Emerald of the East (1929)
• The Man with the Frog (1929)
• The Veil Dancer (1929)
• Inherited Passions (1929)
• Zwei Brüder (1929)
• The Caviar Princess (1930)
• Echo of a Dream (1930)
• Road to Rio (1931)
• The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931)
• The Cheeky Devil (1932)

Bibliography

• Hardt, Ursula. From Caligari to California: Erich Pommer's Life in the International Film Wars. Berghahn Books, 1996.

External links

• Maria Forescu at the Internet Movie Database