Brigitte Horney (29 March 1911 – 27 July 1988) was a German theatre and film actress. Best remembered was her role as Empress Katherine the Great in the 1943 version of the UFA film version of Baron Münchhausen, directed by Josef von Báky, with Hans Albers in the title role.

Early life

Brigitte Horney was born and grew up in Dahlem, Berlin, the daughter of noted psychoanalyst Karen Horney.

Career

She was, for more than a decade, engaged with Berlin's Volksbühne. When she accepted the starring role in the highly popular film Love, Death and the Devil (1934), a new star was born with the Leitmotif song "So oder so ist das Leben". Two years later she would play the love interest of famous actor Hans Albers’s character in the film Savoy Hotel 217. Horney was a good friend of the actor Joachim Gottschalk and appeared in four films with him. Although Gottschalk had fallen from favor with Nazi officials, Horney attended Gottschalk's funeral (Germany, 1941), regardless of the political and career implications of doing so.

Personal life

After the Second World War she became an American citizen, but continued to visit Germany frequently, where she had a house in Bavaria. She married the eminent Jewish art historian Hanns Swarzenski, a leading authority on German Romanesque manuscripts.

Death

She continued to work in films and television (i.e. Oliver Twist) until her death in Hamburg in 1988.

Selected filmography

Film

Television