Ilse Werner

The family went to Germany in 1930. Later she went to Vienna to the Max Reinhardt acting school and made her debut in the play "Glück" at the Theater in der Josephstadt in 1937. They soon became aware of this young actress and only one year later she made her film debut with "Die unruhigen Mädchen" (1938).

Her father was a Dutch plantation owner in Indonesia, her mother was German. After living 10 years on Java, she returned to Europe with her family and finally settled down in Vienna (1934).

Ilse Werner was born in Batavia (present-day Djakarta), the daughter of the Dutch merchant O. E. G. Still and his German wife, Lilly Werner. She spent her early childhood in Batavia, before the family moved her to Frankfurt to attend secondary school. In 1936, Ilse enrolled at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna to study elocution and drama.

Following her graduation, she was offered a contract with a prestigious theatre in Josefstadt and made her stage debut in 1938.

'Discovered' by the director 'Geza von Bolvary' during a performance, she first acted on screen in Finale (1938). Her career then took off at lightning speed and she became one of the most popular stars at Ufa for the next seven years.

Ilse could also be called upon to handle dramatic material and gave creditable performances in Bel Ami (1939) and Grosse Freiheit Nr.

An attractive, tomboyish brunette, Ilse had a considerable aptitude for singing, which producers brought to the fore by frequently casting her in films like Wunschkonzert (1940), the pop musical Wir machen Musik (1942), and (as 19th century Swedish opera star Jenny Lind) in the biopic Die schwedische Nachtigall (1941).

She was the hostess of a popular television show of Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow since 1941, titled "Wir senden Frohsinn - Wir spenden Freude".

7 (1944), opposite Hans Albers. She cleverly alternated her film career with appearances in cabaret and on radio. After the war, she married an American journalist and spent several years in California.

She got married with an American journalist in 1948 and lived in the USA till 1953. Yet she continued appearing in German movies in those years.

After her divorce in 1953, she returned to Germany, but a successful movie comeback eluded her. Nonetheless, she remained in the public eye after releasing several top-selling albums.

Although she had her greatest successes in Germany, mainly during the time of the Third Reich, she did not assume German citizenship until 1955.

After her marriage with Josef Niessen she retired from the film business temporarily. Only in 1959 she was in the limelight again as a singer, the film industry only played a subordinated role.

Her pop song "Baciare" became a major hit across Europe in 1960.

Became famous for her inimitable whistling. The rock band Scorpions used it for the intro of their most successful song "Wind of Change" (1990).

Werner had her last appearance on German TV in 2001.

She lived impoverished in a retirement home in Lübeck, where she died peacefully in her sleep on 7 August 2005, having suffered from pneumonia.