Grethe Weiser

She escaped from her dominant and sometimes violent father by marrying a Jewish confectionery manufacturer in 1920.

Grethe Weiser (born in Hannover, Germany, as Mathilde Ella Dorothea Margarethe Nowka) was a singer, comedian, film and stage actress. She grew up in Kotsche and Dresden and went to the private school Höhere Töchter. At the age of 18 she married Josef Weiser, with whom she had a son in 1922. The family moved to Berlin, where Mr. Weiser opened a cabaret for his wife. There Grethe studied acting and singing, played first at the famous Wintergarten and at the Cabaret der Komiker. Soon she became one of the best German Couplet and Chansonnette singers.

Her first silent movie was "Männer vor der Ehe" (1927), where she played a mate. Later her husband decided to leave Germany because he was Jewish and so not destroy the career of his wife.

Although being a popular comedian in many movies, she refused to join the Nazi party after the takeover in 1933.

After the divorce in 1934 she met film producer Hermann Schwerin and he became her companion. Most of her films were comedies, happy humor films and full of heart.

To her early movies belong "Kasernenzauber" (30), "Der Mann mit der Pranke" (1935), "Einer zuviel an Bord" (1935), "Familie Schimek" (1935), "Eskapade" (1936) and "Menschen ohne Vaterland" (1937). Eventually followed her parade role in "Die göttliche Jette" (1937), which achieved her that popularity which she maintained easily in the next twenty years.

In 1960 she played on stage in Hamburg and in Berlin an der Komödie am Hebbel and at the Renaissance Theater.

In 1968 she got an award called "Verdienstkreuz" from the German President.