Gisela May (31 May 1924 – 2 December 2016) was a German actress and singer.

Early life

May was born in

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

, Germany. Both her mother, Kate May, and her father, Ferdinand May, were writers. She studied at the drama school in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

from 1942 to 1944. She was employed for nine years at various theatres, including the State Theatre of Schwerin and the State Theatre in Halle. Starting in 1951, she performed at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where she played a variety of roles.

Career

In 1962, May moved to

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

's theatre group, 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 Langhoff ...

, and stayed for 30 years. While there she played a variety of roles, including Madame Cabet in ''

The Days of the Commune ''The Days of the Commune'' is a play by the twentieth-century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. It dramatises the rise and fall of the Paris Commune in 1871. The play is an adaptation of the 1937 play ''The Defeat'' by the Norwegian poet and drama ...

'', Mrs Peachum in ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music ...

'', Mrs Kopecka in ''

Schweik in the Second World War ''Schweyk in the Second World War'' (''Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg'') is a play by German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht. It was written by Brecht in 1943 while in exile in California, and is a sequel to the 1923 novel ''The Good Soldier Švej ...

'', and

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 ...

in ''

Mother Courage and Her Children ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' (german: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder, links=no) is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin. Four theatrical ...

''. May was known as a diverse performer. In the 1970s she performed the lead role in the musical ''Hello, Dolly!'' in Berlin, and later she starred in the television series ''Addelheid and her Murderers.'' She also performed solo concerto concerts internationally, including at New York's Carnegie Hall and the Milan Scala. From 1992, she freelanced, often working at Berlin's Renaissance Theatre.

Awards

*1962 ''Clara-Zetkin-Medaille'' *1991 ''Deutscher Filmpreis'' (German Film Award) Film Award in Gold for ''outstanding individual achievement'': Category actress for: ' (1990) *2004

Bundesverdienstkreuz The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

(Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany)

References

External links

May's personal webpage
copy from the internet archive * {{DEFAULTSORT:May, Gisela 1924 births 2016 deaths People from Wetzlar People from the Rhine Province German stage actresses German women singers Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany Best Actress German Film Award winners Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Berlin Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin