Incubator escapee wiki

Mady Christians

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person

Marguerita Maria Christians (January 19, 1892 – October 28, 1951), known as Mady Christians, was an Austrian-born German-American actress who had a successful acting career in theatre and film in the United States until she was blacklisted during the McCarthy period.

BiographyEdit

File:Watch-on-the-Rhine-1941-1.jpg
Mady Christians and Paul Lukas in the original Broadway production of Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine (1941)

She was born on January 19, 1892, to daughter of Rudolf Christians and Bertha (Template:Nee Klein) Christians. Her father was a well-known German actor. Her family moved to Berlin when she was one year old, and to New York City in 1912, where her father became the Irving Place Theatre's general manager.<ref name=Barranger>Template:Cite book</ref> Five years later she returned to Europe to study under Max Reinhardt.

She appeared in several European films before the early 1930s. In 1929, she starred in the first full sound film made in Germany It's You I Have Loved. In 1933, she toured the United States in a play called Marching By and was offered a Broadway contract the following year that allowed her, as several other German artists, to seek refuge from the Nazi regime in the United States.Template:Cn

On Broadway, Christians played Queen Gertrude in Hamlet and Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part I, staged by director Margaret Webster. Webster was part of a small but influential group of lesbian producers, directors, and actors in the theater (a group that included Eva Le Gallienne and Cheryl Crawford). Webster and Christians became close friends. According to Webster biographer Milly S. Barranger, it is likely that they also were lovers.<ref name="Barranger 2004">Template:Cite book</ref>

She also starred in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine.<ref name="ibdb">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She originated the title role in the 1944 play I Remember Mama. Her last movie roles were in All My Sons, based on the play by Arthur Miller, and Letter from an Unknown Woman, both released in 1948. On February 13, 1949, Christians starred in "Silver Cord", an episode of Ford Television Theatre on CBS.<ref name=v>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

During World War II, Christians was involved in political work on behalf of refugees, rights for workers (especially in theater and film), and Russian War relief, political efforts that would bring her to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other anti-communist institutions and organizations.Template:Cn

BlacklistingEdit

In addition to her political work, Christians publicly criticized the House Committee on Un-American Activities in early 1941 and likened the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee's investigation of propaganda in US film to Nazi harassment of film and radio artists in the 1930s.<ref name=Barranger />

In 1950, the FBI's internal security division began investigating Christians, who had been identified as a "concealed communist" by a confidential informant.<ref name=Barranger /> When Christians' name appeared in Red Channels, the so-called bible of the broadcast blacklist, her career was effectively over.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

DeathEdit

On October 28, 1951, aged 59, Christians died of a cerebral hemorrhage, which some attributed to the stress of being subjected to FBI surveillance and being blacklisted.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Selected filmographyEdit

File:Sátori Lipót Az elveszett paradicsom 1917.jpg
Hungarian poster for the 1917 German film Das verlorene Paradies (The Lost Paradise)

Template:Div col

Template:Div col end

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

Template:Portal

Template:Distinguished Performance Award

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Mady_Christians&oldid=450933"