Acting
Mady Christians
Born 1892-01-17 · Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marguerita Maria "Mady" Christians (January 19, 1892 – October 28, 1951) was an Austrian actress and naturalized US citizen who had a successful acting career in theatre and film in the United States until she was blacklisted during the McCarthy period. She was born on January 19, 1892 to Rudolph Christians, a well-known German actor, and his wife, Bertha. Her family moved to Berlin when she was one year old, and to New York City in 1912, where her father became the Irving Place Theatre's general manager. Five years later she returned to Europe to study under Max Reinhardt. She appeared in a number of European films prior to the early 1930s. In 1929, she starred in the first full sound film made in Germany It's You I Have Loved. In 1933, she toured the United States in a play called Marching By and was offered a Broadway contract the following year that allowed her, like a number of other German artists, to seek refuge from the Nazi regime in the United States. On Broadway, Christians played Queen Gertrude in Hamlet and Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part I, staged by director Margaret Webster. Webster was part of a small but influential group of lesbian producers, directors, and actors in theater (a group that included Eva Le Gallienne and Cheryl Crawford). Webster and Christians became close friends: according to Webster biographer Milly S. Barranger, it is likely that they also were lovers. She also starred in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine. She originated the title role in the 1944 play I Remember Mama. Her last movie roles were in All My Sons, based on the play by Arthur Miller, and Letter from an Unknown Woman, both released in 1948. During World War II, Christians was involved in political work on behalf of refugees, rights for workers (especially in theater and film), and Russian War relief, political efforts that would bring her to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other anti-communist institutions and organizations. In addition to her political work, Christians also publicly criticized the House Committee on Un-American Activities in early 1941 and likened the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee's investigation of propaganda in US film to Nazi harassment of film and radio artists in the 1930s. In 1950, the FBI's internal security division began investigating Christians, who had been identified as a "concealed communist" by a confidential informant. When Christians' name appeared in Red Channels, the so-called bible of the broadcast blacklist, her career was effectively over.
Acting credits
7.8A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.
Letter from an Unknown Woman
1948
6.9Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.
Heidi
1937
6.5During WWII, industrialist Joe Keller commits a crime and frames his business partner Herbert Deever. Years later, his sin comes back to haunt him when his son plans to marry Deever's daughter.
All My Sons
1948
6.8An ambitious lumberjack abandons his saloon girl lover so that he can marry into wealth, but years later becomes infatuated with the woman's daughter.
Come and Get It
1936
NRAudrey, an orphan, becomes the ward of a wealthy man, but when he travels to England, she is turned over to an unscrupulous couple who usurp her money and turn her into a slave.
Audrey
1916
5.7Jo Jones, a young defense plant worker whose husband is in the military during World War II, shares a house with three other women in the same situation.
Tender Comrade
1944
6.4A Parisian sewer worker longs for a rise in status and a beautiful wife. He rescues a girl from the police, lives with her in a barren flat on the seventh floor, and then marches away to war.
Seventh Heaven
1937
10.0No synopsis available yet.
Fräulein Chauffeur
1928
5.0A woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.
A Wicked Woman
1934
No synopsis available yet.
Der Millionendieb
1921
No synopsis available yet.
Gelbe Bestien
1921
6.3A mature and visually elegant period romance that remains one of the earliest and most compassionate overtly gay-themed films in movie history. Based upon Herman Bang's 1902 novel, Dreyer's Michael refashions the classical Greek myth of Jupiter and Ganymede into a love triangle between an aging artist, Zoret, his protagonist Michael, and Princess Zamikoff, an aristocratic femme fatale as entranced by Michael’s youthful beauty as Zoret is.
Michael
1924
6.5The Ethiopian King offers his daughter to a powerful Pharaoh to secure peace between the two countries.
The Loves of Pharaoh
1922
8.0The singing stoker and the vamp.
Ship Cafe
1935
7.0English-language version of Ich und die Kaiserin. 'Germany, 1890. Duke falls in love with voice which is not that of empress, but of hairdresser.' (British Film Catalogue)
The Only Girl
1933
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Mensch gegen Mensch
1924
6.6The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke's affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins.
The Finances of the Grand Duke
1924
No synopsis available yet.
Der Kaiser der Sahara
1923
8.0A young composer and inventor meets a poverty stricken singer.
The Burning Heart
1929
6.4When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.
Address Unknown
1944
Weapons manufacturer Robert Cors was injured in an explosion at his factory: a piece of shrapnel lodged itself in his brain. After surgery and a long rehabilitation process, a "quirk" became apparent: Cors suddenly found himself unable to lie!
Die Welt will belogen sein
1926
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Meine Schwester und ich
1929
6.7In 1812, during the French period, large parts of Germany are occupied by the troops of Napoleon. Several paramilitary Freikorps units battle the French forces, among them the Black Brunswickers led by the 'Black Duke' Frederick William of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After the War of the Fifth Coalition, the Black Hussars are pursued by Napoleon throughout the country, but frequently take refuge with the noble-minded German people.
The Black Hussar
1932
5.9Austrian actress Mady Christians stars alongside German matinee idol Willy Fritsch in this adaptation of the Oscar Straus operetta about a Prince who, after falling for a Viennese girl, becomes obsessed with the city and its customs.
The Waltz Dream
1926