Katharina Thalbach in-person

Last night I finally met one of my favourite German actresses of complex parts, the renowned Katharina Thalbach. Though Mrs. Thalbach is currently shooting a movie in Berlin in which she portrays German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she took the time to drive more than 600 km to perform a dramatic reading of 19th century writer Theodor Storm's work in my city for one night only. 

When I arrived at the theatre I learned that I had just missed her by a mere 10 minutes. Since I didn't want to wait for her to come out the stage door to smoke a cigarette, I simply went into the theatre and made my way right to the theatre's stage where Katharina Thalbach and the theatre staff were just discussing her performance and talking about technical details. When she spotted me, I asked her if she's be so kind to sign some of my photos and she happily agreed and asked me to wait a moment until she was done with the theatre staff. A few minutes later she came over to me and when she saw the 8x10" photos I had brought along she was amazed and surprised because two of them were photos showing her at age 15 and age 20 which she didn't even have herself. So while signing and inscribing my photos she asked me if I would be so kind to send her some 8x10" prints of these two photos and when I agreed she was super happy and promised to return the favour. We talked for some time about her daughter Anna and the film she is currently shooting in Berlin and before I left she also posed for two photos with me. All in all Mrs. Thalbach was as adorable and charming as people know her.

Katharina Thalbach was born in 1954 in East Berlin and comes from a particularly artistic-oriented family. Her father Benno Besson was a director and her mother Sabine Thalbach was an actress. Her late husband Thomas Brasch was an author. Her daughter Anna (born 1973) and her granddaughter Nellie (born 1995) are also actresses. Also her half-brother Pierre Besson and her stepmother Ursula Karusseit are actors, too.

Katharina Thalbach's mother died when she was 12 and in the years that followed Berthold Brecht's widow Helene Weigel took care of her. In 1976 Katharina Thalbach and her late husband Thomas Brasch emmigrated from East Berlin to West Berlin. Her work as actress includes films such as "The Tin Drum" which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1979, "Sophie's Choice" starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, "Väter and Söhne - Eine deutsche Tragödie" starring Burt Lancaster and Julie Christie and most recently "Friedrich - Ein deutscher König" in which she portrays Frederick II, King of Prussia aka Frederick the Great alongside her daughter Anna Thalbach.

Katharina Thalbach - "Friedrich - Ein deutscher König" (2011)