Biography

In a 1977 television show, the interviewer tactfully suggested that by the dawn of the 1950's Gert was perhaps not so well remembered as before. With typical self-deprecating humor and bluntness typical for Berliners, she exclaimed, "Not so well remembered? I was totally forgotten!".

During World War I she adjoined a Berliner dance group and created first dance satires. Finally it followed an engagement at the Deutsches Theater where she had a huge success in eccentric roles for avant-garde plays.

Gert wrote articles for such magazines as ''Die Weltbühne" and the "Berliner Tageszeitung".

German-Jewish actress and dancer of eccentric personality and dark, aquiline features. Her radical interpretations of modern dance are now regarded as having been ahead of her time. She first studied dance from the age of six and took acting lessons from Alexander and Maria Moissi. She performed in cabaret and pantomime in Berlin and at the Munich Kammerspiele during the 1920's and also acted in silent films. She was forced to leave Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933.

Her career in Germany ended in 1933 because she was Jewish. From then on she danced in Paris, Budapest and London. Upon her return to Germany in 1950, she managed a similar operation in Berlin, the 'Hexenkueche' (Witch's Kitchen'), before being rediscovered for the screen by Fellini.