Trivia

Distinguished character actress and acting teacher, on stage from the age of sixteen. First made a name for herself at the turn of the century as a dramatic actress in plays by Gerhart Hauptmann. Had lengthy spells in Berlin with Max Reinhardt at the Deutschen Theater (honorary member from 1946) and also at the Preußischen Staatstheater (1903-32). In silent films from 1913. Her second husband was star actor Emil Jannings, with whom she appeared on screen several times. From 1933-36, director (with Ilka Grüning) of the Staatlichen Schauspielschule in Berlin, subsequently ran her own acting academy. Director and professor at the acting school in Schwerin, 1946-50.

Her stepfather, Georg Höflich (1854-1906), was an actor and director at the Berliner Schauspielhaus.

From 1946 to 1950 Höflich was theater director, actress, play director and head of the acting school at the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater in Schwerin. In the acting school young talent was groomed for study at national acting academies. Many of these young actors and actresses would later become internationally known.

In 1903 Max Reinhardt recruited her to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin where she performed until 1932.

In 1937 Höflich was named a Staatschauspielerin and temporarily ended her active stage career.

In 1953 she was achieved with the "Bundesverdienstkreuz" for her lifework.

When she became well-known as an actress at theaters - she worked from 1903 to 1932 at the "Deutsches Nationaltheater" in Berlin - and made her film debut in 1913 with "Gensdarm Möbius".

Höflich's first marriage (1910 - 1917) with Georg Anton Mayer produced a daughter, Ursula (*1911).

While still active on stage she appeared in her first film, the Gensdarm Möbius in 1913.

Höflich appeared in many European countries on her tours with Max Reinhardt.

The a little stocky actress was engaged as a resolute character in the sound films.

Many prominent actors and actresses were successfully trained by Höflich, among them Marianne Hoppe, Otto and Eberhard Mellies, Inge Meysel, Lilli Palmer and Annemarie Wendl.

With Ilka Grüning she headed the Staatliche Schauspielschule (State Acting Academy) in Berlin in 1933/34, and from 1936 on had her own studio for training young actors and actresses at the Volksbühne.

Her acting artistry was marked by naturalness and high intensity despite minimal physical gestures and a restrained vitality with sudden outbursts.

In 1946 Lucie Höflich became an honorary member of the Deutsches Theater, and in 1947 a professor.

Lucie debuted at the age of 16 at the Bromberg City Theater and in 1901 moved to the Intime Theater von Nürnberg, and then to the Raimund-Theater in Vienna.

Before 1933 her shifting engagements brought her to various Berlin theaters (Preußisches Staatstheater, Reinhardt's Theaters).

Lucie Höflich was an important pillar of the Reinhardt-Theater and attained the high point of her fame around 1920 as a great realistic character actress.

Examples of her appearances were as Kätchen in Heinrich von Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn in 1905 and as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 1907.

In 1937 she was appointed national actress, but Lucie Höflich refused to appear on German stages during the Nazi regime. She only appeared in some few film productions like "Ohm Krüger" (1941) and "Altes Herz wird wieder jung" (1943).

In 1953 she was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Medal of Honor, Germany's only order of merit). Höflich died, presumably from the after-effects of a heart attack, at age 73.

After 1950 she resided in Berlin, where she acted on the stage and taught at the acting academy. But she suffered greatly from age-related afflictions which hindered her in her work.

In 1932/33 Lucie Höflich worked in Hamburg.

Her biographies claim that she refused to appear on a German stage after the Nazi seizure of power. But a conflict with her growing film career seems more likely than a protest motivated by conscience: in the years 1934 to 1943 alone she acted in eighteen films, among them the National Socialist propaganda film Ohm Krüger.