Theodora Anna Mathilde Julie Rosenquist (8 May 1896 – 26 July 1959), known as Thea Rosenquist, was a German

stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...

and

film actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...

. She acted in several Austrian

silent films A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...

, and was considered a replacement for

Liane Haid Juliane "Liane" Haid (16 August 1895 – 28 November 2000) was an Austrian actress and singer. She has often been referred to as Austria's first movie star. Biography Juliane Haid was born in Vienna on 16 August 1895, the first child to Georg ...

. She married

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

Leon Joseph Koerner (or Körner) in 1923, and settled down 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 ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. Rosenquist was of

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 ...

origin and had to escape following the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

takeovers of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. She went to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, on to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

before finally settling down in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Several of her family members were killed in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Rosenquist and her husband established a charitable foundation, the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, in 1955. The Thea Koerner House Graduate Student Centre of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

was named in her honour. The Koerner House, Leon and Thea Koerner's residence in Palm Springs, California, was designed by master architect

E. Stewart Williams Emerson Stewart Williams, FAIA (November 15, 1909 – September 10, 2005) was a prolific Palm Springs, California-based architect whose distinctive modernist buildings, in the Mid-century modern style, significantly shaped the Coachella Val ...

in 1955.

Notable films

Rosenquist played Rahel in 1919's ''

The Jewess of Toledo ''The Jewess of Toledo'' (german: Die Jüdin von Toledo) is a play by Franz Grillparzer. Written in 1851, it was first performed in Prague in 1872, after Grillparzer's death. The play is based on the love affair between King Alfonso VIII of Casti ...

'' and starred as Baronesse Tirnau in the 1922 biopic, ''

Ludwig II Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886) was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or ('the Fairy Tale King'). He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the ...

''.

References

Bibliography

* Dassanowsky, Robert. ''Austrian Cinema: A History''. McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub, 2005.

External links

* 1896 births 1959 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Canada German stage actresses German film actresses German silent film actresses Actors from Lübeck Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss Jewish Canadian actresses Jewish Canadian philanthropists 20th-century German actresses 20th-century Canadian philanthropists {{Germany-film-actor-stub