Lore Frisch (1925-1962) was a German film actress of the 1950s and early 1960s. She starred in the popular DEFA films Der Ochse von Kulm (1955), Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter (1956), and Meine Frau macht Musik/My Wife Makes Music (1958). When her married lover abandoned her, she committed suicide.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 234, 1956. Photo: Manfred Klawikowski.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 54/68. Photo: Wenze DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1164, 1961.
Lore Frisch was born in 1925 in Schwindegg, Bavaria, as Eleonora Frisch, daughter of a painter from Bad Reichenhall. She took ballet lessons during her school days.
During the Second World War, she worked as a nurse, and when stationed in Ost Friesland, she joined the theatre company Wanderfrühne Ostfriesische Kammerspiele Leer. Lore Frisch initially worked there as a prompter, tailor, and stage painter. Later she also took on stage roles. In 1948 she had appearances in Ingolstadt and at Munich theaters. She received acting lessons from Martin Hellberg and worked temporarily as a broadcaster, stenographer, and nurse.
In the early 1950s, Lore Frisch appeared in three Heimat films, shot in Bavaria. In the comedy Der weißblaue Löwe/The Blue and White Lion (Werner Jacobs, Olf Fischer, 1952), she played the daughter of Wastl Witt. She then appeared in the family drama Junges Herz voll Liebe/Young Heart Full of Love (Paul May, 1953), in which a boy (Hans Brenner) loses his parents in an avalanche, and becomes devoted to the animals on his farm. The third film was the comedy Ehestreik/Marriage Strike (Joe Stöckel, 1953) with Erich Auer. It was a remake of the 1935 film of the same title directed by Georg Jacoby.
Martin Hellberg, who had moved to the GDR in 1949, brought her to DEFA in 1954, where she had a prolific career. At the DEFA dubbing studios, Frisch met European stars such as Giovanna Ralli and Marina Vlady. She also appeared in the film 52 Wochen sind ein Jahr/52 Weeks Make A Year (Richard Groschopp, 1955). In the film comedy Der Ochse von Kulm/The Ox of Kulm (Martin Hellberg, 1955), she played the wife of a Bavarian farmer who rebels against the American occupying powers. In 1956, she made her most successful film Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), a period piece musical comedy that also ran in the BRD. It is set around the Russian Czar Peter the Great's secret visit to the Dutch Republic to study shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century.
In Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter, Czar Peter I (Bert Fortell), incognito as Peter Michailow, works in the Dutch Republic in the little town of Saardam [a pun on the real village of Zaandam where the real Peter I stayed], learning to build ships. He trades places with a fellow Russian carpenter, Peter Iwanow (Günther Haack), to escape foreign ambassadors and the pushy, greedy mayor Van Bett (Willy Kleinau). While the French ambassador has recognised the Czar, the English ambassador and the mayor think Iwanow is the Czar, creating all kinds of misunderstandings. Meanwhile, both Peters are in love with Marie (Frisch), who cannot decide which one she'll go for, and even Marie is fooled by the fake Czar.
German postcard by VEB DEFA-Filmstudio für Spielfilme, Potsdam-Babelsberg. Photo: Wunsch, Berlin / DEFA.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3901/100, 1956. Photo: Wunsch / DEFA.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 7080/92. Photo: Wunsch / DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/Tsar and Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
In 1958 Lore Frisch had another great success as the leading actress in the revue film Meine Frau macht Musik/My Wife Makes Music (Hans Heinrich, 1958). In this film, she plays a housewife who steadfastly goes her way as a singer. She is discovered and turned into a singing star by an Italian (Alexander Hegarth), much to her husband's (Günter Simon) disapproval.
Meine Frau macht Musik/My Wife Makes Music sold 6,052,050 tickets at the East German box office but drew criticism from the communist authorities who regarded its style as too close to western commercial cinema. She embodied combative, self-confident women, especially as a women's rights activist in Nur eine Frau/Just a Woman (Carl Balhaus, 1958).
In contrast, in the satire Das Kleid/The Dress (Konrad Petzold, Egon Günther, 1961), an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale 'The Emperor's New Clothes', she was an opportunistic Minister of Clothing. Due to the obvious parallels to everyday life in the GDR, the film only premiered in 1991.
Lore Frisch, who had been living in West Berlin, moved to the GDR in 1959, hoping to get more big parts at DEFA, but she only got smaller ones. She occasionally also appeared at theatres.
When her lover, the actor Alexander Hegarth, who was married, went back to his wife in Western Germany, Frisch was so devastated that she committed suicide and died in Potsdam in 1962.
German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach. Photo: Wunsch, Berlin.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 88/69. Photo: Wenzel / DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/Tsar and Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 47/426. Photo: Neufeld / DEFA.
Sources: Synchron-Forum (German), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 16 April 2024.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 234, 1956. Photo: Manfred Klawikowski.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 54/68. Photo: Wenze DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1164, 1961.
A period piece musical comedy about Czar Peter I
Lore Frisch was born in 1925 in Schwindegg, Bavaria, as Eleonora Frisch, daughter of a painter from Bad Reichenhall. She took ballet lessons during her school days.
During the Second World War, she worked as a nurse, and when stationed in Ost Friesland, she joined the theatre company Wanderfrühne Ostfriesische Kammerspiele Leer. Lore Frisch initially worked there as a prompter, tailor, and stage painter. Later she also took on stage roles. In 1948 she had appearances in Ingolstadt and at Munich theaters. She received acting lessons from Martin Hellberg and worked temporarily as a broadcaster, stenographer, and nurse.
In the early 1950s, Lore Frisch appeared in three Heimat films, shot in Bavaria. In the comedy Der weißblaue Löwe/The Blue and White Lion (Werner Jacobs, Olf Fischer, 1952), she played the daughter of Wastl Witt. She then appeared in the family drama Junges Herz voll Liebe/Young Heart Full of Love (Paul May, 1953), in which a boy (Hans Brenner) loses his parents in an avalanche, and becomes devoted to the animals on his farm. The third film was the comedy Ehestreik/Marriage Strike (Joe Stöckel, 1953) with Erich Auer. It was a remake of the 1935 film of the same title directed by Georg Jacoby.
Martin Hellberg, who had moved to the GDR in 1949, brought her to DEFA in 1954, where she had a prolific career. At the DEFA dubbing studios, Frisch met European stars such as Giovanna Ralli and Marina Vlady. She also appeared in the film 52 Wochen sind ein Jahr/52 Weeks Make A Year (Richard Groschopp, 1955). In the film comedy Der Ochse von Kulm/The Ox of Kulm (Martin Hellberg, 1955), she played the wife of a Bavarian farmer who rebels against the American occupying powers. In 1956, she made her most successful film Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), a period piece musical comedy that also ran in the BRD. It is set around the Russian Czar Peter the Great's secret visit to the Dutch Republic to study shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century.
In Zar und Zimmermann/The Czar and the Carpenter, Czar Peter I (Bert Fortell), incognito as Peter Michailow, works in the Dutch Republic in the little town of Saardam [a pun on the real village of Zaandam where the real Peter I stayed], learning to build ships. He trades places with a fellow Russian carpenter, Peter Iwanow (Günther Haack), to escape foreign ambassadors and the pushy, greedy mayor Van Bett (Willy Kleinau). While the French ambassador has recognised the Czar, the English ambassador and the mayor think Iwanow is the Czar, creating all kinds of misunderstandings. Meanwhile, both Peters are in love with Marie (Frisch), who cannot decide which one she'll go for, and even Marie is fooled by the fake Czar.
German postcard by VEB DEFA-Filmstudio für Spielfilme, Potsdam-Babelsberg. Photo: Wunsch, Berlin / DEFA.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3901/100, 1956. Photo: Wunsch / DEFA.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 7080/92. Photo: Wunsch / DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/Tsar and Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
Embodying combative, self-confident women
In 1958 Lore Frisch had another great success as the leading actress in the revue film Meine Frau macht Musik/My Wife Makes Music (Hans Heinrich, 1958). In this film, she plays a housewife who steadfastly goes her way as a singer. She is discovered and turned into a singing star by an Italian (Alexander Hegarth), much to her husband's (Günter Simon) disapproval.
Meine Frau macht Musik/My Wife Makes Music sold 6,052,050 tickets at the East German box office but drew criticism from the communist authorities who regarded its style as too close to western commercial cinema. She embodied combative, self-confident women, especially as a women's rights activist in Nur eine Frau/Just a Woman (Carl Balhaus, 1958).
In contrast, in the satire Das Kleid/The Dress (Konrad Petzold, Egon Günther, 1961), an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale 'The Emperor's New Clothes', she was an opportunistic Minister of Clothing. Due to the obvious parallels to everyday life in the GDR, the film only premiered in 1991.
Lore Frisch, who had been living in West Berlin, moved to the GDR in 1959, hoping to get more big parts at DEFA, but she only got smaller ones. She occasionally also appeared at theatres.
When her lover, the actor Alexander Hegarth, who was married, went back to his wife in Western Germany, Frisch was so devastated that she committed suicide and died in Potsdam in 1962.
German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach. Photo: Wunsch, Berlin.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 88/69. Photo: Wenzel / DEFA. Lore Frisch in Zar und Zimmermann/Tsar and Carpenter (Hans Müller, 1956), adapted from the comical opera by Albert Lortzing.
German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 47/426. Photo: Neufeld / DEFA.
Sources: Synchron-Forum (German), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 16 April 2024.
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