Lili Darvas

Hungarian-born Lili Darvas (pronounced 'Darvash') was a major star first in Budapest, then on the German stage with Max Reinhardt's theatre company during the 1920s, touring Europe with plays by Goethe, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Shaw. She received her education at the Budapest Lyceum and made her acting debut at the age of 20 as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet".

In 1926, she married playwright Ferenc Molnár who wrote several plays for her, including "Olympia" and "Delilah". The following year she made her Broadway debut as Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

When Reinhardt's company traveled to New York in 1927, Darvas appeared as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, as Faith in Jedermann, Lucille in Danton's Tod, and Beatrice in The Servant of Two Masters. Like other actors in the Reinhardt company, she gravitated to film work in the 1930s. Toward the end of her prewar European career, she played the title role in the film Marie Baskirchev (1936). Her next significant movie role would be in the MGM all-star musical Meet Me in Las Vegas in 1956.

When she returned to Austria she continued her stage career, beside it she appeared in one more movie - "Tagebuch der Geliebten" (1935). The movie war directed by Heinrich Kosterlitz who later became famous in the USA as Henry Koster, the actors in the movie were Attila Hörbiger, S.Z. Szakall and Frida Richard.

Lili was of Jewish background and was forced to flee Europe after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, using her Hungarian passport to escape to Switzerland. Later, on the advice of actor Walter Slezak, she hired a tutor to perfect her English language skills. Although she was known for her fine acting range she never lost her Hungarian accent which limited her to playing women of continental background.

In 1944, she became an American citizen.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Darvas worked steadily on the New York stage. She returned to Budapest to perform in a revival of Olympia in 1965 and made the film Love there five years later. Her last major Broadway stage role was that of Madame Neilsen in Les Blancs in 1970.

In 1951, she began a television career that would lead to roles in over a hundred programs. Her most significant television performance was in the title role of the National Educational Television Opera Theatre production of Rachel La Cabana in 1973.

The union was childless but happy, and lasted until Molnar's death in 1952.

Following her husband's death in 1952, Lili acted increasingly in radio and early television anthology drama.

On screen, she appeared in the big budget MGM musical Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956).

In the course of the succeeding three decades she enjoyed many a success on the New York stage, including a starring role in "Waltz of the Toreadors" (1958) and as Sigmund Freud's domineering mother Amalie in "The Far Country" (1961). She was nominated for a Tony Award in one of her last roles as Best Supporting or Featured Actress in Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs".

Was nominated for Broadway's 1971 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "Les Blancs."

Darvas died on July 22, 1974. Theater critic Harold Clurman summed up her talent: "Lili Darvas' pulsating heartiness, a kind of paprika which flavors the dismal and obscene with the dignity of sound human instincts, is a cause for rejoicing.".