Stage, Film Star Elisabeth Bergner Dies at 85

Elisabeth Bergner, whose stylish and distinguished presence graced the stages and film screens of Europe and America for more than 50 years, died Monday in London.

The woman whom theater critic Alexander Woollcott once said was “probably the ablest actress living today” was 85, and her attorney said she died at her home after a long illness.

Born Elizabeth Ettelin Poland, Miss Bergner was the toast of the German and Austrian stage in the decade preceding Adolf Hitler, while becoming one of Germany’s earliest and best-known film stars.

Vienna Conservatory

She had studied at the Vienna Conservatory and made her debut at the City Theater in Zurich in 1919. After a number of small parts, she played Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Rosalind in “As You Like It.”

She also appeared in many of the plays directed by Max Reinhardt and starred in films in Germany in 1923.

The following year she was chosen to portray the Maid of Orleans in George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” winning over critics on the Continent. She followed that with heralded performances playing the title role in “The Last of Mrs. Chevney,” Tessa in “The Constant Nymph,” and Portia in “The Merchant of Venice.”

In 1928, Miss Bergner toured Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Austria in a variety of roles. The following year, she starred as Nina Leeds in “Strange Interlude” and in 1930-31 she played Juliet with Francis Lederer--soon to become a fellow expatriate--as Romeo.

Her first film in English was “The Loves of Ariane” in 1931 and she was to spend the remainder of her professional life alternating film work in Great Britain, Germany and the United States.

Directorial Mainstay

In 1933 she married Paul Czinner who had directed her in the German film “Nju” years before. He continued to be her directorial mainstay until his death in 1972, traveling with her to Hollywood in the 1930s where both were under contract to Samuel Goldwyn.

Miss Bergner had made her debut on the English stage in Manchester in 1933 as Gemma Jones in “Escape Me Never” and her London debut at the Apollo Theater that year in the same role.

She was an instant success in the part in Britain and again in New York when the show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theater in 1935.

By then she and her husband had been forced from Germany by the Nazis and she settled in England.

Probably her best-known American picture was “Escape Me Never,” a 1935 film about unrequited love which brought Miss Bergner a best actress nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

After the war she toured the United States in “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” and “The Duchess of Malfi,” spent the 1950s in Australia, Germany, Britain and Austria and was Mrs. Patrick Campbell in a German production of the Shavian tour de force “Dear Liar.”

One of her most remembered stage appearances was in “The Boy David,” written for her in 1936 by Sir James Barrie, author of “Peter Pan.”

Barrie died the following year, leaving Miss Bergner $10,000 for “the best performance ever given in any play of mine.”

Miss Bergner leaves no survivors.