Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was a German actress and artistic director. She was the second wife of Bertolt Brecht and was married to him from 1930 until his death in 1956. Together they had two children.

Personal life

Weigel was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

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

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. She and husband Brecht had two children,

Stefan Brecht Stefan Sebastian Brecht (November 3, 1924 – April 13, 2009) was a German-born American poet, critic and scholar of theatre. Life and career The son of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and actress Helene Weigel, Stefan Brecht was born in Ber ...

and Barbara Brecht-Schall. Weigel was a

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

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 Langho ...

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

Antigone In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & R ...

'' in Brecht's version of the Greek tragedy; the title role in his civil war play, ''

Señora Carrar's Rifles ''Señora Carrar's Rifles'' (german: Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar) is a one-act play by the twentieth-century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, written in collaboration with Margarete Steffin. It is a modern version of the Irish dramatist John Mil ...

''; 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 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

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

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

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

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

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 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 horror films of the 1970s. Early life Ingoushka Petrov was born in Warsaw, Poland, one of two daughters ...

, 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 German 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