Lena Amsel

Lena Amsel (1898-1929) was a dancer and actress. Between 1917 and 1923, she appeared in several silent German films. She died in a car accident during an impromptu race.


German postcard by NPG, no. 976. Photo: Anny Eberth.

Contact with the greats of vaudeville, film, and theatre

Lena Amsel was born in Lodz, Poland, Russian Empire, in 1898. She came from Jewish manufacturing circles.

In 1914 Amsel moved to Dresden, and in 1915 to Berlin. She sought contact with the greats of vaudeville, film, and theatre. In 1916, she met Karl Gustav Vollmoeller and Max Reinhardt in the Café des Westens. Vollmoeller became her lover and patron for several years.

In 1917 she appeared on stage as a dancer in the Berlin Varieté Theater Wintergarten, shortly afterward in front of the camera in Vienna. In 1917/1918 she appeared in the Austrian silent films Pinselputzi stiftet Unheil und eine Ehe, Pinselputzi rendevouzelt, Lenas noble Bekanntschaft, Meine Tochter, deine Tochter and Der Weg zum Reichtum, produced partly by PAGU and partly by by Sascha.

Although she had no dance training, Lena Amsel was able to hold her own as a dancer on German and Austrian stages for several years. Her film career also continued in the early 1920s.

In 1922/1923 she had a small part in the four-episode film Tragödie der Liebe/Tragedy of Love, directed by Joe May, starring Mia May and with co-actors Vladimir Gajdarov, Emil Jannings, and Erika Glässner.

Her last film was Der allmächtige Dollar/The Mighty Dollar (Jaap Speyer, 1923), alongside Eduard von Winterstein. NB IMDb mentions also Die Gräfin von Paris but this is the same film as Tragödie der Liebe.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1907. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2219. Photo: Atelier Eberth (Anny Eberth).

An impromptu race with Bugatti sports cars

In private life. Lena Amsel's liaison with Vollmöller from 1917 to 1924 was interrupted by three short marriages and three divorces. In 1927 Lena Amsel moved to Paris.

Through Vollmoeller she came into contact with renowned French artists: André Derain, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Ossip Zadkine, Louis Aragon, André Breton, René Crevel, and Paul Éluard.

Lena Amsel died near Paris on 2 November 1929 at the age of 31 as a result of an automobile accident that occurred on a road between Paris and Fontainebleau. There, the dancer and the painter André Derain, who drove a Bugatti sports car as she did, had challenged each other to an impromptu race. Amsel's car skidded, overturned, and caught fire.

Derain was unable to rescue her and her friend Florence Pitron, who also died in the fatal accident, from the burning wreckage. Lena Amsel was buried in Paris at the Cimetière du Montparnasse.

Lena Amsel's life and fate inspired Ruth Landshoff to write her fictional biography, probably completed in 1933, entitled 'Roman einer Tänzerin' (Novel of a Dancer). The work was banned from publication due to the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. The posthumous first edition was printed almost 70 years later in 2002.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5027. Photo: Atelier Eberth, Berlin.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5028. Photo: Atelier Eberth (Anny Eberth).

Source: Wikipedia (German and English), Filmportal, and IMDb.