Ossi Oswalda

Ossi Oswalda (1895-1947) was one of the most popular comediennes of German silent cinema. Ernst Lubitsch became her Pygmalion, who let her play in numerous comedies between 1916 and 1920. Her popularity at the time earned her the nickname 'The German Mary Pickford'.


French postcard in the Europe series, no. 590. Photo: Agence Européenne Cinematographique. Ossi Oswalda in Das Mädel auf der Schaukel/The girl on the swing (Felix Basch, 1926).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 529/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Ossi Oswalda-Film.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 611/4. Photo: Union / Ufa. Ossi Oswalda in Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 635/6. Photo: Union. Ossi Oswalda in Die Puppe/The Doll (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1050/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa. Ossi Oswalda in Blitzzug der Liebe/The Cupid Express (Johannes Guter, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1597/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

Ernst Lubitsch

Ossi Oswalda (1895-1947) was born in Niederschönhausen, Imperial Germany (now part of Berlin), but she was of Prague origin. Her real name was Oswalda Stäglich.

Oswalda trained as a ballerina and became a dancer for a theater in Berlin.

She made her film debut in Nächte des Grauens/Night of Horrors (Richard Oswald, Arthur Robison, 1916) before being discovered by the actor and screenwriter Hanns Kräly.

He recommended her to director Ernst Lubitsch who cast her in their comedy Schuhpalast Pinkus/Shoe Salon Pinkus (1916).

Lubitsch became her Pygmalion, who let her play in numerous comedies between 1916 and 1920, which joked with the provincial and stiff petty-bourgeois mentality of Wilhelminian Germany.

Examples are Ossis Tagebuch/Ossi's Diary (1917), Ich möchte kein Mann sein/I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918), Meine Frau, die Filmschauspielerin/My Wife the Movie Star (1919), and Die Puppe/The Doll (1919).

The best of these was Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (1919), in which Ossi is a spoiled daughter of a wealthy American, who is supposed to wed an impoverished German prince (but is marrying his stupid servant instead).

The whole film exaggerated all the clichés about Americans who like everything big and make modern, absurdistic music, and about Germans who are only interested in food & drinks, but Lubitsch did so in a very witty way.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 183/2. Photo: Nicola Perscheid.


With Ernst Lubitsch. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 337/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Zander & Labisch.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 474/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 641/7. Photo: Union. Ossi Oswalda in Kakadu und Kieblitz/Kakadu and Kiebitz (Erich Schönfelder, 1920).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1377. Photo: Alex Binder.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1929.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1997. Photo: Union Film. Ossi Oswalda in Ossi's Tagebuch/Ossi's Diary (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2359. Photo: Union Film. Ossi Oswalda in (probably) Das Mädel vom Ballett/Ther Ballet Girl (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918). The actress in the back is Margarethe Kupfer.

Unrestrained, Wild and Witty Girl

When Ernst Lubitsch left for America he left Ossi Oswalda in the hands of Victor Janson, who had been her co-star in Die Wohnungsnot/The Housing Shortage (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) and Kakadu und Kiebitz/Kakadu and Kiebitz (Erich Schönfelder, 1920).

Janson was not unworthy for his task but he repeated Oswalda's typology of the unrestrained, wild and witty girl, without adding the spice Lubitsch always had added.

In 1921, Oswalda started her own film production company with her husband at the time, Baron Gustav von Koczian.

However, during the next four years, they only produced four films, including Amor am Steuer/Love at the Wheel (Victor Janson, 1921) and Das Mädel mit der Maske/The Girl With the Mask (Victor Janson, 1922) with Hermann Thimig.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 895/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Ossi Oswalda-Film-Prod. Ossi Oswalda in Colibri (Viktor Janson, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 30/2. Photo: Ufa. Ossi Oswalda and Ernst Hofmann in Blitzzug der Liebe/The Cupid Express (Johannes Guter, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 474/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 685/4, 1919-1924. Photo: publicity still for Niniche (Victor Janson, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1347/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Manassé, Wien.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 753/2, 1925-1926.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 761/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Crown Prince

From 1925 on, Ossi Oswalda was contracted to the Ufa. She starred in comedies like Blitzzug der Liebe/Love Express Train (Johannes Guter, 1925) and Herrn Filip Collins Abenteuer/Mr. Filip Collins Adventure (Johannes Guter, 1926) with Georg Alexander.

When Oswalda's name was romantically linked to that of former Crown Prince Wilhelm, while that of Lily Damita with the prince's son Ludwig Ferdinand, insulting caricatures spread, and the Hohenzollern family stopped both affairs short.

The affair also influenced Oswalda's career, who continued to make films but she would never reach the top anymore. Her star dwindled down, and her parts became smaller and smaller.

She appeared in only two sound films, making her final film appearance in Der Stern von Valencia/The Star of Valencia (Alfred Zeisler, 1933).

Later on, she became a stage actor, and in 1943, she wrote the story for the Czechoslovakian film Ctrnáctý u stolu (Oldrich Nový, Antonín Zelenka, 1943).

For a short while, Ossi Oswalda was the talk of the town again once more, after she had died in the most miserable condition in Prague in 1947.



German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2186. Photo: Mac Walten, Berlin.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 3310. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 3334. Photo: Rembrandt.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1453/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Angelo Photos.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1480/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3871/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Ernst Schneider, Berlin / FPS.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 2045/1. Portrait of Ossi Oswalda, sketched by the Italian caricaturist Cesare Musacchio (1882-1956).


German postcard by Westi, Berlin. Photo: Westi Film. Ossi Oswalda and Livio Pavanelli in Niniche (Victor Janson, 1925). The postcard was sent by mail in 1925.


Croatian (former Kingdom of Yugoslavia) postcard. Mosinger-Film, Zagreb. Jos Caklovic, Zagreb, No. 43. Ossi Oswalda in Niniche (Victor Janson, 1925).


German postcard by H.C. Stöckel, Hannover-Linden, for Bemberg Strümpfen. Caption: I only dance through life with Bemberg stockings. Ossi Oswalda.


German postcard in the Moderne Künstler series by MMB, no. 462. Photo: F.J. Wesselsky.

Source: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio - Italian), Wikipedia, and IMDb.