Marianne Sägebrecht


Actor

About

Also Known As
Marianne Saegebrecht, Marianne Steiger
Birth Place
Germany
Born
August 27, 1945

Biography

This Rubanesque character player with a heart-shaped face and child-like features began her career as a leading producer and performer of Germany's alternative theater/cabaret scene. The eclectic background of Marianne Sagebrecht included stints as a medical lab assistant and magazine assistant editor before she found her calling in show business. Claiming to be inspired by Bavaria's mad...

Family & Companions

Fritz
Husband
Married in 1964; divorced in 1975.

Biography

This Rubanesque character player with a heart-shaped face and child-like features began her career as a leading producer and performer of Germany's alternative theater/cabaret scene. The eclectic background of Marianne Sagebrecht included stints as a medical lab assistant and magazine assistant editor before she found her calling in show business. Claiming to be inspired by Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II, she became known as the "mother of Munich's sub-culture" as producer and performer of avant-garde theater and cabaret revues, particularly with her troupe Opera Curiosa. Spotted by director Percy Adlon in a 1977 production of "Adele Spitzeder" in which she essayed the role of a delicate prostitute, Sagebrecht was cast as Madame Sanchez/Mrs. Sancho Panza in Adlon's TV special "Herr Kischott" (1979), a spin on "Don Quixote." The director put her in his 1983 feature "The Swing" in a small role and then created the leading role of Marianne, an overweight mortician in love with a subway conductor, in "Sugarbaby" (1985) especially for her.

American films beckoned as well and Sagebrecht was often cast in roles tailored to her unique abilities. Paul Mazursky reworked the part of a Teutonic masseuse for her in "Moon Over Parador" (1988) while Danny De Vito tailored the part of the German housekeeper for a divorcing couple in "The War of the Roses" (1989). Returning to Germany, she shone as the timid maid in the 1930s who marries her Jewish employer for convenience then falls in love in "Martha and I" (1990; released in the USA in 1995). Sagebrecht headlined the black comedy as an unhappy wife whose straying husband plots her death in "Mona Must Die" (1994) and had small supporting parts in "The Ogre" (1996) and "Lost Luggage" (1998).

Life Events

1961

Trained as medical lab assistant

1975

Assistant photography editor of COLORS magazine

1977

Spotted playing a prostitute in "Adele Spitzeder" in Munich by Percy Adlon

1980

TV debut as Mrs. Sanchez (Mrs. Sancho Panza) in Percy Adlon's "Monsieur Kischott"

1982

Created the cabaret revue "Talzewurm"

1983

Screen acting debut in Adlon's "The Swing"

1985

First leading film role in "Sugarbaby/Zuckerbaby", directed by Adlon

1988

First English-language film, "Bagdad Cafe", also directed by Adlon

1989

Had lead in Adlon's "Rosalie Goes Shoppping"

1989

Co-starred in the US-produced "The War of the Roses"

1990

Played a German maid who marries her Jewish employer in "Martha and I"

1994

Portrayed a wife whose husaband was constantly trying to kill her in the black comedy "Mona Must Die"

1996

Had featured role in Volker Schlondorff's "The Ogre"

1998

Played supporting role of heroine's mother in "Left Luggage", directed by Jeroen Krabbe

Family

Georg
Father
Killed during WWII in April 1945.
Agnes
Mother
Seamstress.
Renate
Step-Sister
Daniela
Daughter
Born in 1967.

Companions

Fritz
Husband
Married in 1964; divorced in 1975.

Bibliography