German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3094/1. Photo: Binz / Bavaria-Filmkunst.
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3825/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Hämmerer / Wien-Film.
Pursued by misfortune
Olly Holzmann was born as Ilona Holzmann in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, now Austria in 1916 (according to IMDb in 1915). Nothing is currently known about her family background. Olly competed in the national championships in figure skating and appeared on stage, e.g. at the Vienna Volkstheater in the New Year's Eve premiere in 1938 as Hermia in William Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
She made her film debut with a small part in the Spy film Hotel Sacher (Erich Engel, 1939) next to Sybille Schmitz, Willy Birgel, and Wolf Albach-Retty. In her second film Frau im Strom/Woman in the Current (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1939) she played the part of the girlfriend of a car mechanic (Attila Hörbiger), who saves an unknown woman (Hertha Feiler) from the Danube river and falls in love with her.
In the melodrama Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) she portrayed the daughter of a poor widow (Käthe Dorsch), who offers everything to turn her spoiled and difficult children into useful citizens. The film was made by the Vienna-based Wien-Film which had been established following the German annexation of Austria the previous year.
Her first bigger role was as a parlour maid in Tipp auf Amalia/Tip On Amalia (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1940), who is suddenly connected to three other servants by an unexpected joint inheritance. Her most successful film commercially was the romance Wiener G’schichten/Vienna Tales (Géza von Bolváry, 1940), in which she played a supporting role next to Marte Harell, Paul Hörbiger and Hans Moser. The film was a box-office hit.
In the same year, she had her first leading part in the Comedy of Errors Sieben Jahre Pech/Seven Years Hard Luck (Hubert Marischka, 1940). At the side of Hans Moser and Theo Lingen, she portrayed a young woman whose admirer (Wolf Albach-Retty) thinks he is pursued by misfortune and therefore doesn’t dare to make her a proposal. In the crime film Fünftausend Mark Belohnung/5000 Mark Reward (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1942) she played the wife of an amateur detective (Martin Urtel), who overambitiously drives her husband into all kinds of troubles.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2892/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.
Wolf Albach-Retty. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6884/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.
Defectors
With her distinctive temper, her fizzy joy of life and Austrian charm, her dark hair and her ordinary but nice face, Olly Holzmann was the typical 'Wiener Mädel' (Vienna Girl), impersonated by many actresses in the 1930s and 1940s. Olly is best remembered for her leading role in the lavishly produced ice spectacle Der weiße Traum/The White Dream (Géza von Cziffra, 1943). It was the first time that the former ice dancer could show her skating skills in a film.
In the film, Holzmann also sang the song ‘Kauf dir einen bunten Luftballon’ (Buy Yourself a Colourful Balloon), which became particularly popular. Her on-screen lover was again Wolf Albach-Retty, but her partner in the ice scenes was world champion Karl Schäfer. It was one of the most popular wartime German releases. In 1945, an American military survey found it to be among a group of very successful Nazi-era entertainment films at the box office, well ahead of foreign imports. In 1944, Olga Holzmann was on the 'Gottbegnadeten-Liste' (List of Godsent) by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Although her last three films were shot before the end of the war, they were only first shown after the war. Those films were nicknamed 'Überläufer'(Defectors). In the romantic comedy Erzieherin gesucht/Governess Wanted (Ulrich Erfurth, 1945-1950) she played a mannequin, who fills in for a friend as a governess for a five-year-old boy and turns properly the heads of the kid’s three uncles (Ernst von Klipstein, Wolfgang Lukschy and Fritz Wagner). In the musical comedy Liebe nach Noten/Love After Notes (Géza von Cziffra, 1945-1947) she learns from a composer ladykiller (Rudolf Prack) that women can compose too. Her last film was the romantic comedy Im Tempel der Venus/In the Temple of Venus (Hans H. Zerlett, 1945-1948) with Olga Tschechova and Willy Birgel, in which she played a secondary part.
Olly Holzmann was married twice. Her first marriage was to the anti-fascist sports journalist Alexander Meisel, a brother of Josef Meisel. They married in 1934. After the ‘Anschluss’ of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in 1938, Meisel was taken into ‘protective custody’ on one of the first transports to the Dachau concentration camp on 13 May 1938. He was arrested again on 31 October 1938 and identified by the Gestapo. On 24 February 1942, he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he died on 3 March 1942.
Her second husband was the American officer Alexander Orley, a racecar driver and export merchant, who she had met in 1945 in bombed Berlin. At this time, she acted in the play 'Versprich mir nichts' (Promise Me Nothing, 1946) by Charlotte Rissmann and directed by Viktor de Kowa, at Die Tribüne in Berlin. With her husband, her daughter and his son, she went to live on a Caribbean island. After her husband died in 1975, she returned to her hometown, Vienna. Olly Holzmann died in 1995, in London, Great Britain.
Austrian postcard by Eberle-Verlag, Wien (Vienna), no. 25. Photo: I.S.B. Films. The I.S.B. was the central agency in charge of cultural diplomacy in Austria after WW II.
Austrian postcard. Photos: Wien Film. Olly Holzmann in Der weiße Traum/The White Dream (Géza von Cziffra, 1943).
Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line - German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 16 October 2024.
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