Anna Sten
Born	Annel Stenskaya Sudakevich (1908-12-03)3 December 1908 Kiev, Ukraine, Russian Empire
Died	12 November 1993(1993-11-12) (aged 84) New York City
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1926–1964
Spouse	Fyodor Otsep (1927–1931) Eugene Frenke (1932–1984)

Anna Sten (Russian: Анна Стен, 3 December 1908 – 12 November 1993) was a Ukrainian-born Russian silent film actress and later a Hollywood film star. She began her career in stage plays and films in Russia before travelling to Germany, where she starred in several films. Her film performances were noticed by film producer Samuel Goldwyn, who brought her to the United States with the aim of creating a new screen personality to rival the popularity of Greta Garbo. After a few unsuccessful films, Goldwyn released her from her contract. She continued to act occasionally until her final film appearance in 1962.^[1][2]

Early life [link]

Annel Stenskaya Sudakevich^[2] was born 3 December 1908. Her father was a Russian ballet master who died when she was 12. Her mother was Swedish. Sten worked as a waitress until she was discovered at the age of 15 while acting in an amateur play in Kiev. Her discoverer was the influential Russian stage director and instructor Konstantin Stanislavsky, who arranged an audition for her at the Moscow Film Academy.^[1]

Film career [link]

Sten acted in plays and films in Russia, including Boris Barnet's 1927 comedy The Girl with a Hatbox. She traveled to Germany to appear in films co-produced by German and Russian studios, international productions common in the years prior to World War II.^[1]

Making a smooth transition to talking pictures, Sten appeared in such German films as Trapeze (1931) and The Brothers Karamazov (1931) until she came to the attention of American movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn was looking for a foreign-born actress that he could build up as the rival of Greta Garbo, and possible successor to Vilma Bánky with whom Goldwyn had great success in the silent era. For two years after bringing Sten to America, Goldwyn had his new star tutored in English and taught Hollywood screen acting methods. He poured a great deal of time and money into Sten's first American film, Nana (1934), a somewhat homogenized version of Émile Zola's scandalous 19th century novel. But the film was not successful at the box office, nor were her two subsequent Goldwyn films, We Live Again (1934) and The Wedding Night (1935), playing opposite Gary Cooper. Reluctantly, Goldwyn dissolved his contract with his "new Garbo."^[1][2] Goldwyn's tutoring of Sten is mentioned in Cole Porter's 1934 song "Anything Goes" from the musical of the same name: "If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction / Instruct Anna Sten in diction / Then Anna shows / Anything goes."

In the 1940s, Sten appeared in several films, including The Man I Love (1940), So Ends Our Night (1941), Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas (1943), They Came to Blow Up America (1943), Three Russian Girls (1943), and Let's Live a Little (1948). Sten continued making films in the United States and England, but none of them were successful. In the 1950s, she appeared in several television series, including The Red Skelton Show (1956), The Walter Winchell File (1957), and Adventures in Paradise (1959).

Later life [link]

Sten was married to film producer Eugene Frenke, who flourished in Hollywood after following his wife there in 1932. Most of Anna Sten's later film appearances were favors to her husband. She had an uncredited bit in the Frenke-produced Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), and a full lead in her final film (also produced by Frenke), The Nun and the Sergeant (1962).

Anna Sten died 12 November 1993 in New York City at the age of 84.^[2]

Filmography [link]

See also [link]

Biography portal

• Vera Kholodnaya
• Ossip Runitsch
• Igor Ilyinsky
• Ivan Mozzhukhin
• Alla Nazimova

References [link]

External links [link]

• Anna Sten at the Internet Movie Database
• Anna Sten at AllRovi
• Photographs and literature
• Anna Sten at Find a Grave
• Anna Sten Biography (in Russian)