Henny Porten

Henny Porten
File:Henny Porten, 1922.jpg
Born	Frieda Ulricke Porten (1890-01-07)7 January 1890 Magdeburg, Germany
Died	Berlin, Germany
Occupation	Actress, film producer
Years active	1906–1955

Frieda Ulricke "Henny" Porten (7 January 1890 – 15 October 1960) was a German actress and film producer of the silent era, and Germany's first major film star. She appeared in more than 170 films between 1906 and 1955.

She was one of the few German actress of the era to enter film without having stage experience. Many of her earlier films were directed by her husband Curt A. Stark, who died during World War I in Transylvania on the Eastern Front in 1916. Her father, Franz Porten, was also an actor and film director.

In 1921, she remarried, to Wilhelm von Kaufmann. When the Nazis took power and she refused to divorce her Jewish husband, she found that her career, while doing twelve films a year, dissolved immediately. When she resolved on emigration, she was denied an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. She made ten films during the Nazi era. Her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences confronted with Allied bombardment. In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed her home, she and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew.

She starred in the 1924 film Gräfin Donelli, which was directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.

Selected filmography

• The Robber Bride (1916)
• The Queen's Love Letter (1916)
• The Wandering Light (1916)
• Imprisoned Soul (1917)
• The Princess of Neutralia (1917)
• The Marriage of Luise Rohrbach (1917)
• Countess Kitchenmaid (1918)
• The Homecoming of Odysseus (1918)
• Her Sport (1919)
• Rose Bernd (1919)
• Anna Boleyn (1920)
• Kohlhiesel's Daughters (1920)
• The Vulture Wally (1921)
• Backstairs (1921)
• The Ancient Law (1923)
• Inge Larsen (1923)
• I.N.R.I. (1923)
• The Merchant of Venice (1923)
• Gräfin Donelli (1924)
• Mother and Child (1924)
• The Adventures of Sybil Brent (1925)
• The Golden Calf (1925)
• Chamber Music (1925)
• Roses from the South (1926)
• The Long Intermission (1927)
• Lotte (1928)
• Violantha (1928)
• Escape (1928)
• The Mistress and her Servant (1929)
• Skandal um Eva (1930)
• Kohlhiesel's Daughters (1930)
• Louise, Queen of Prussia (1931)
• 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman (1931)
• Mother and Child (1934)
• Trouble Backstairs (1935)
• The Comedians (1941)
• The Buchholz Family (1944)
• Absender unbekannt (1950)
• Carola Lamberti – Eine vom Zirkus (1954)
• Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1955)

External links

• Henny Porten at the Internet Movie Database
• Henny Porten at Find a Grave