Renate Mannhardt

Renate Mannhardt (1920-2013) was a German supporting actress of the 1950s. She was known for such films as Peter Lorre's Der Verlorene (1951), Die große Schuld/The great debt (1953) and Roberto Rossellini's Non credo più all'amore (La paura)/Fear (1954).


West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 909. Photo: Lars Looschen.


West German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 723. Photo: Rolf Lantin / Meteor / Allianz Film. Renate Mannhardt in Käpt'n Bay-Bay/Captain Bay-Bay (Helmut Käutner, 1953).


West German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. Fk 242. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Constantin-Filmverleih / Algefa Film. Renate Mannhardt in Der keusche Josef/The Chaste Joseph (Carl Boese, 1953).

Film debut as an exotic dancer

Renate Mannhardt was born Hanna Renate Kohlschein in 1920 in Barmen, Germany. She was the daughter of a lawyer and publisher.

Renate took private acting lessons. She made her film debut as an exotic dancer in the romance Auf Wiedersehn, Franziska!/Goodbye, Franziska (Helmut Käutner, 1941) starring Marianne Hoppe and Hans Söhnker.

In the summer of 1943, she received her first engagement at the Königshütte theatre.

After the war, she performed with the Münchner Kammerspielen and at the Komödienhaus in Berlin.


West German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 623. Photo: Algefa / Constantin-Filmverleih / Arthur Grimm / Marszalek. Renate Mannhardt in Der keusche Josef/The Chaste Joseph (Carl Boese, 1953).


German collectors card by Helmstedter Margarinewerk GMBH, Helmstedt. Photo: Constantin-Filmverleih. Renate Mannhardt in Der keusche Josef/The chaste Josef (Carl Boese, 1953). Gift by Didier Hanson.

The ill-fated fiancée of a German scientist

In the cinema, Renate Mannhardt played several key roles in post-war films, perhaps best known as the ill-fated fiancée of a German scientist (Peter Lorre), who is murdered by him during the Second World War when he learns that she has been selling his secret research to the enemy in Der Verlorene/The Lost Man (Peter Lorre, 1951).

She also appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in the German-Italian film Non credo più all'amore (La paura)/Angst/Fear (Roberto Rossellini, 1954).

In the drama Die Ehe des Dr. med. Danwitz/Marriage of Dr. Danwitz (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1956), she played a laboratory assistant.

In 1956, she met an American business consultant, whom she married and went to the United States. Before ending her film career, she appeared in a few more American and German films and TV shows.

Renate Mannhardt died in 2013 in New York City, New York, USA, at 92. She had a son named Christian (1942).


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1635. Photo: Real / Europa-Film / Haenchen. Renate Mannhardt in Die Ehe des Dr. med. Danwitz/Marriage of Dr. Danwitz (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1956).


West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3327. Photo: Dührkoop / Ufa.

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.