Person Details

Birthday:

Aliases: No known aliases

Gender: Female

Place of birth: Rostock, Germany

Homepage:

Movie Involvements: 41

TV Involvements: 16


Most Famous Work

Biography

Born in Rostock, Hoppe became a leading lady of stage and films in Germany. She was born into a wealthy landowning family and was initially privately educated on her father's private estate. Later she attended school in Berlin and in Weimar, where she began to attend theatre.[1] Hoppe first performed at 17 as a member of Berlin's Deutsches Theater under director Max Reinhardt. In 1935 she was hired by the controversial German actor and Director of the Prussian State Theatre under the Third Reich, Gustav Gründgens. They were married from 1936-46, until their divorce. Speaking years after the marriage had ended Hoppe stated, "He was my love, but never my great love, that was work."[1] One of the characters in the film Mephisto was reportedly based on her. Hoppe made no secret of her contacts with the Nazi elite in the 1930s/40s, including being invited to dinner by Hitler.[2] Her role in Der Schimmelreiter (The Rider of the White Horse, 1934) made her famous almost overnight, while her "Aryan" face made her a darling of the Nazi elite.[1] Later Hoppe would label this period of her life as "the black page in my golden book".[1] During her time acting at the home of the Prussian State Theatre, the Schauspielhaus, Hoppe developed her analytical approach to acting, which she stated consisted in her "taking apart every sentence" and giving the use of language a brilliance. This method was to be associated with Hoppe throughout her working life.[1] In 1946 her only child, Benedikt Johann Percy Gründgens, was born. Four years later after her divorce from Gründgens, Hoppe had a great success as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and increasingly played avant-garde roles, written by authors such as Heiner Muller (Quartett, 1994) and Thomas Bernhard, who became her partner in private life as well. She became a favourite of the young and iconoclastic directors Claus Peymann, Robert Wilson and Frank Castorf. Hoppe died in Siegsdorf, Bavaria, in 2002 from natural causes, aged 93. "German theater has lost its queen", said Claus Peymann of the Berliner Ensemble, whose theatre featured Hoppe's last performance, in Bertolt Brecht's Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in December 1997.[2] In one of her last interviews Hoppe stated, "I have a go at happiness every day. That takes discipline, a virtue every halfway decent actor should have."

Most Famous Work

Scene of the Crime
Average
6

Scene of the Crime

(1970) Zeugin
Der Alte
Average
6

Der Alte

(1977) Charlotte Steinburger
Bambi Awards
Average
9

Bambi Awards

(1948) Self
Goldene Kamera Verleihung
Average
4
Deutscher Filmpreis (Lola)
Average
6
Grimme-Preis-Verleihung
Average
0
Der Kommissar
Average
8

Der Kommissar

(1969) Charlotte Echte
Ten Little Indians
Average
6

Ten Little Indians

(1965) Elsa Grohmann

Acting

Year Character Movie/Tv
2017 Various Roles (archive footage)
2000 N/A
1998 Self
1991 Maximiliane
Frau Weinstein
1990 Self
1989 N/A
Self
Hedwig Schuster
1988 Gräfin Hohenlohe
Thea Ammer
1987 Herself
1986 Claire Maetzig
Self
1984 N/A
1983 Marianne
Self
1981 Elisabeth v. Ardenne
Mutter
1980 Self
1979 Self
Tante Doda
1977 Johanna Martinek
Charlotte Steinburger
1975 Mother
Tante Thea
Präsidentin
1974 Self
1970 Zeugin
1969 Johanna Blago
Lotte Boszilke
Amalie Schöndorf
Charlotte Echte
Mrs. Bryant
1968 Herzogin von Gloster
1967 Self
Selma Selig
1966 Madame Hunter
Self
1965 Die Zeit
Augusta
Elsa Grohmann
1964 Mrs. Brendel
Self
Edna Selby
Patricia Taylor
Self
1963 Iokasta
Self
1962 Mrs. Butler
Henriette Flamm
Generalin
1961 Mary Pinder, verw. Moron
1958 Martha Krapp
1955 self
1954 Helga Dargatter
1951 Self
1950 die Frau
1949 Irene Scholz
1948 Johanna Stegen alias Luscha
Self
1945 Lenore Carius
1944 Julia Bach
1943 Madeleine
1942 Felicitas Iversen
1941 Franziska Tiemann
1939 Renate Brinkmann
Effi Briest
1937 Gabriele Brodersen
Mabel Atkinson
Inken Peters
1936 Hester
Marie
1935 Regine Kessler
Käthe Liebenow
Maria Schönborn, Verkäuferin im Blumenhaus Floris
Hella Bergson
1934 Johanna Luerssen
Anna
Elke Volkerts
1933 Ursula Diewen
Josefa
Year Character Movie/Tv

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