MH
Photo of Marianne Hoppe

Marianne Hoppe

Actor
Born April 26, 1909Died October 23, 2002 (93 years)
Born in Rostock, Hoppe became a leading lady of stage and films in Germany. She was born into a wealthy landowning family and was initially privately educated on her father's private estate. Later she attended school in Berlin and in Weimar, where she began to attend theatre.[1]

Hoppe first performed at 17 as a member of Berlin's Deutsches Theater under director Max Reinhardt. In 1935 she was hired by the controversial German actor and Director of the Prussian State Theatre under the Third Reich, Gustav Gründgens. They were married from 1936-46, until their divorce. Speaking years after the marriage had ended Hoppe stated, "He was my love, but never my great love, that was work."[1]

One of the characters in the film Mephisto was reportedly based on her. Hoppe made no secret of her contacts with the Nazi elite in the 1930s/40s, including being invited to dinner by Hitler.[2] Her role in Der Schimmelreiter (The Rider of the White Horse, 1934) made her famous almost overnight, while her "Aryan" face made her a darling of the Nazi elite.[1] Later Hoppe would label this period of her life as "the black page in my golden book".[1]

During her time acting at the home of the Prussian State Theatre, the Schauspielhaus, Hoppe developed her analytical approach to acting, which she stated consisted in her "taking apart every sentence" and giving the use of language a brilliance. This method was to be associated with Hoppe throughout her working life.[1] In 1946 her only child, Benedikt Johann Percy Gründgens, was born.

Four years later after her divorce from Gründgens, Hoppe had a great success as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and increasingly played avant-garde roles, written by authors such as Heiner Muller (Quartett, 1994) and Thomas Bernhard, who became her partner in private life as well. She became a favourite of the young and iconoclastic directors Claus Peymann, Robert Wilson and Frank Castorf.

Hoppe died in Siegsdorf, Bavaria, in 2002 from natural causes, aged 93. "German theater has lost its queen", said Claus Peymann of the Berliner Ensemble, whose theatre featured Hoppe's last performance, in Bertolt Brecht's Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in December 1997.[2] In one of her last interviews Hoppe stated, "I have a go at happiness every day. That takes discipline, a virtue every halfway decent actor should have."

Known For

  • The Treasure of the Silver Lake
  • Ten Little Indians
  • Wrong Move
  • Romance in a Minor Key
  • The Strange Countess
  • Auf Wiedersehn, Franziska!
  • The False Step
  • Der Schimmelreiter
  • Kongo-Express
  • Secrets of a Soul
  • Love in Stunt Flying
  • A Woman of No Importance
  • Schloß Königswald
  • Der Mann meines Lebens
  • Schicksal aus zweiter Hand
  • Nur eine Nacht
  • Die Goldsucher von Arkansas
  • Krach um Jolanthe

Marianne Hoppe Filmography

2017
Hitler's Hollywood · as Various Roles (archive Footage)
2004
1991
Tassilo (TV Series) · as Maximiliane
1989
Heldenplatz · as Hedwig Schuster
1988
Schloß Königswald · as Gräfin Hohenlohe
1986
Kir Royal (TV Series) · as Claire Maetzig
1983
Marianne und Sophie · as Marianne
1979
Die Magermilchbande (TV Series) · as Tante Doda
1977
The Old Fox (TV Series) · as Johanna Martinek
1975
Wrong Move · as Mother
1970
Tatort (TV Series) · as Witness
1969
The Commissioner (TV Series) · as Johanna Blago
1969
Tag für Tag · as Mrs. Bryant
1967
Death runs after them (TV Series) · as Madame Brassac
1967
Die Mission · as Selma Selig
1965
Ten Little Indians · as Elsa Grohmann
1964
Die Goldsucher von Arkansas · as Mrs. Brendel
1962
1962
Der Walzer der Toreros · as Generalin
1961
The Strange Countess · as Mary Pinder, Verw. Moron
1958
1954
Der Mann meines Lebens · as Helga Dargatter
1950
Nur eine Nacht · as Die Frau
1949
Schicksal aus zweiter Hand · as Irene Scholz
1948
Secrets of a Soul · as Johanna Stegen Alias Luscha
1943
Romance in a Minor Key · as Madeleine
1942
Stimme des Herzens · as Felicitas Iversen
1941
Auf Wiedersehn, Franziska! · as Franziska Tiemann
1939
Kongo-Express · as Renate Brinkmann
1939
The False Step · as Effi Briest
1937
Love in Stunt Flying · as Mabel Atkinson
1937
Der Herrscher · as Inken Peters
1936
1934
1934
Der Schimmelreiter · as Elke Volkerts

Take Plex everywhere

Watch free anytime, anywhere, on almost any device.
See the full list of supported devices