Hildegard Knef

Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born on December 28, 1925 in Ulm, Germany.

In 1940, she began studying acting. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, but most of them were only released after the war. To avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers, she dressed like a young man and was sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin where she played her first parts on stage.

The first German movie after World War II, Murderers Among Us (1946), made her a star. David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood and offered her a contract - with two conditions: Hildegard Knef should change her name into Gilda Christian and should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. She refused both and returned to Germany.

According to her memoirs "The Gift Horse", she found out that she had won the Best Actress award in Locarno for her role in Film Without a Name (1948) by reading an article about her success in a newspaper - one year after the award was announced at the festival!.

Became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950.

In 1951, she provoked one of the greatest scandals in German film history when she appeared naked on the screen in the movie Die Sünderin (1951).

The Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against that film, but Hildegard just commented: "I can't understand all that tumult - five years after Auschwitz!"With the support of her first husband, the American Kurt Hirsch, she tried a second time to launch a Hollywood career, changed her family name from Knef to Neff (because Americans could not pronounce Knef), but the only worthwhile part she got was a supporting role in the Hemingway adaptation of The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952). She became a leading lady in German, French and British films. Finally, America offered her another chance, this time on the stage. She achieved a kind of stardom as Ninotchka in the very popular Broadway play, "Silk Stockings".

Was the cover girl for Modern Man Magazine in August 1956.

Knef launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote her bestselling autobiography "Der geschenkte Gaul - Bericht aus meinem Leben" ("The Gift Horse - Report from my life") in 1970.

In 1963, she began a new career as a singer and surprised the audience with her typical, deep, smoky voice and the fact that many lyrics of her songs were written by herself.

Gave birth to her daughter Christina (Tinta Knef) on 16 May 1968. She was 42. Christina was her first and only child.

In 1970, she wrote the autobiographical bestseller "Der Geschenkte Gaul". She got sympathy from all over the world for her fight against cancer, which she defeated several times.

Provided the voice for Grandmother Willow on the German soundtrack version of Disney's Pocahontas (1995).

She was cast in The Ninth Gate (1999) and in a television movie, Wie angelt man sich einen Müllmann? (2001), but had to leave both projects because of poor health. Barbara Jefford and Ingrid van Bergen gladly took over her roles. Knef's last movie appearance was in a rather forgettable Austrian comedy called Eine fast perfekte Hochzeit (1999).

Told her biographer Christian Schröder in 2000 that her favorite pictures were Murderers Among Us (1946), Film Without a Name (1948), Svengali (1954), Port of Desire (1958) and Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1976). Her least favorite of her own movies was Escape from Sahara (1958) which was one of the biggest flops in post-war Germany and practically ended her film career.