Biography

Alexandra Moltke Isles grew up in New York where her father was a permanent member of the Danish Mission to the United Nations and her mother was an editor at VOGUE.

As a child she hated school but always had her nose in a book. Growing up as a U.N. brat honed her sensitivity to injustice and a theme running through all her work is social justice and dignity for the outsider.

Her historical documentaries are as notable for the memorable personalities interviewed as they are for the richness of the archival material. Isles' passion for research was developed during her years as a Researcher and then Assistant Curator at New York's Museum of Radio & Television, now the Paley Center of Media.

Her previous films are The Power of Conscience: The Danish Resistance and Rescue of the Jews (1995); Scandalize My Name: (1999) about the black listing of African-American performers during the Red Scare; Porraimos: Europe's Gypsies in the Holocaust (2002); The Healing Gardens of New York (2007); and Hidden Treasures :Stories from a Great Museum (2011)
- IMDb mini biography by: Alexandra M.Isles

In the late 1970s, she was the mistress of Claus von Bülow, and claimed to be a motive for two alleged attempts by him to murder his wife. As depicted in Reversal of Fortune (1990) (wherein she was portrayed by Julie Hagerty), Claus was eventually acquitted of the charges, though the truth remains unclear.

Terribly nearsighted, she could not see the teleprompter when she acted on Dark Shadows (1966). This meant that she had to make sure to memorize all of her lines.

Daughter of a Danish count and diplomat, Carl Adam Greve von Moltke, and wife Mabel Wilson, and paternal granddaughter of Carl Greve von Moltke (1869-1935) and his American wife Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer, who had some Dutch American ancestry.

One child, Adam (b. 1969), with Philip Isles.

[on being asked to return to "Dark Shadows" after taking maternity leave] I said I might consider it if Victoria could change her character, if she could get possessed or be bad, because there just wasn't anything to act really. It wasn't a lot of fun. I thought everyone else was having a great time being whatever strange character. Victoria was always the same.... I can understand now that Victoria had to stay the goody-goody because the viewer had to identify with her. She was the outsider like the viewer was. She didn't know what was going on. I think it probably served a purpose in the plot line to have somebody like that.

There were two ways to get out of the studio.... and there were times we would go out the back door.... But then, of course, the kids discovered about the back door.... I can't remember how we got through it. It wasn't so terrible, except that one time somebody tried to pull out my hair on the street. She wanted some hairs to take home. That wasn't - I didn't appreciate that too much.

I realized that "Dark Shadows" was really big when I was working.... with Peter Fonda, and he and I went out to lunch one day. We walked down the street and he told me that people were recognizing me, not him. That seemed crazy, but I guess that's the power of television and millions of people having televisions in their apartments as opposed to going to the movies.