Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was an Austrian actress and artistic director. She was the second and last wife of

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

until his death in 1956; together they had two children.

Personal life

Weigel was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, the daughter of Leopoldine (née Pollak) and Siegfried Weigel, an accountant-general in a textile factory. Her family was

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

. She and husband Brecht had two children, Stefan Brecht and Barbara Brecht-Schall. Weigel was a Communist Party member from 1930.

Career

Weigel became the artistic director of the

Berliner Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langh ...

on 16 February 1949. She is best remembered for creating several Brecht roles, including: Pelagea Vlassova, '' The Mother'' of 1932; ''

Antigone ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP). History ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...

'' in Brecht's version of the Greek tragedy; the title role in his civil war play, '' Señora Carrar's Rifles''; and the iconic ''

Mother Courage Mother Courage (German ''Mutter Courage'') is a character from a Grimmelshausen novel ''Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche'' (''The Runagate Courage'') dating from around 1670. The character had played a cameo r ...

''. Between 1933 and 1947, as a refugee from

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

's Germany, she was seldom able to pursue her acting craft, even during the family's six-year period in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. It was only with the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

in 1949 that Brecht's theatre began to be recognized worldwide. She died in 1971, still at the helm of the company, and many of the roles that she created with Brecht are still in the theatre's repertoire today.

Death

Weigel died in

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

on 6 May 1971, six days before her 71st birthday.

Notable understudies

Ingrid Pitt Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov; 21 November 193723 November 2010) was a Polish-British actress and writer, best known for her work in British horror cinema of the 1970s. Early life Ingoushka Petrov was born in Warsaw, Poland, one of two ...

, British-Polish actress

References

External links

Berliner Ensemble
*Jennifer Marston Willia
Biography of Helene Weigel
Jewish Women Encyclopedia * {{DEFAULTSORT:Weigel, Helene 1900 births 1971 deaths Actresses from Vienna Austrian Jews Austrian emigrants to Germany Communist Party of Germany politicians Jewish socialists Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Cultural Association of the GDR members East German women in politics 20th-century Austrian actresses Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold Family of Bertolt Brecht Burials at the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery