German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3901/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick.
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 4019/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Sarre / Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.
Young, capricious women or society girls
Ingeborg Maria von Kusserow was born in 1919 in Wollstein, during the Weimar Republic; now Wolsztyn, Poland. Her father, Curt von Kusserow, came from an old noble family in East Elbia. She received dance and ballet training as a child.
As a teenager, she began her career as a singer, dancer and actress in Berlin. She performed at the Berlin Opera, the Metropol Theatre and the Schlosspark Theatre. In 1936, she made her film debut at Ufa in the Operetta film Das Hofkonzert / The Court Concert (Detlef Sierck, a.k.a. Douglas Sirk, 1936) starring Márta Eggerth and Johannes Heesters. It was the first of around 30 features and shorts she made in Germany.
She also played a supporting part in a comedy with Johannes Heesters, Wenn Frauen schweigen / When Women Keep Silent (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1937). She was the leading lady in another comedy, Das Mädchen von gestern Nacht / The Girl of Last Night (Peter Paul Brauer, 1938) starring Willy Fritsch.
In the following years, Von Kusserow portrayed many young, capricious women or society girls in several film operettas and melodramas for Ufa. She also starred in Nazi Propaganda films during the Third Reich, which she wrote about in a 1949 memoir 'I Was Hitler's Mickey Mouse'. In 1941, Von Kusserow married Percy Friedrich Graf von Welsburg in 1941. He was a Hungarian national born in England. They hoped to get to Britain via Switzerland, but this proved impossible. They spent the war in Berlin, experiencing all its deprivations and terrors, which she described in the memoir 'Enough, No More' (1948).
However, she continued to make a few films and in 1944, she was on the 'list of godsent' by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. In the early 1940s, she also released several records for the Imperial label with Willy Berking's studio orchestra. After the war, she enjoyed success at the West Berlin ‘Rheingau-Theatre’ as Eliza Doolittle in the play ‘Pygmalion' by George Bernard Shaw and at the Schlosspark Theatre with Hans Söhnker in the comedy ‘Dr. med. Hiob Prätorius’ (1947) by Curt Goetz. In 1947, the couple emigrated to Britain and lived in St John's Wood, London. They had one son, Patrick Hubert Welsburg (1943).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2891, 1939-1940. Photo: Tobis / Haenchen.
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3678/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick.
Strong-minded, even at times controlling
In Great Britain, Ingeborg von Kusserow filmed under the name Ingeborg Wells. Her British films included Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (Raoul Walsh, 1951) starring Gregory Peck and with a very modest role for Wells and the comedy One Wild Oat (Charles Saunders, 1951) starring Robertson Hare and Stanley Holloway.
In British cinema, she mostly played foreign women, such as in the crime drama Women of Twilight (Gordon Parry, 1952), the first British film to get the new X certificate. Her roles were mainly supporting parts. Her final film was Across the Bridge (Ken Annakin, 1956), based on a short story by Graham Greene. She also appeared in several British TV series, including an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1956).
Kusserow retired in 1963, and two years later, in 1965, she divorced Percy Friedrich Graf von Welsburg. She was invited back to West Berlin to star in a German version of an American play, 'You Know I Can't Hear You When The Water's Running' (1968) by Robert Anderson. She found she was still well remembered by many old fans.
In 1968, she married Kenneth Slingsby-Fahn, a retired RAF officer. Their life together in their garden flat in Abercorn Place has been recounted in a memoir by a neighbour. John Mills in The Independent: "She was strong-minded, even at times controlling. This had made her life with Percy stormy; Kenneth, however, was happy to go along with everything she proposed, and so harmony prevailed during their 40 years together."
In 1979, she and her husband relocated to a cottage in Houghton, West Sussex, where Kenneth died in 2007. Kusserow lived alone until 2013, when she suffered a fall and had to live in a care home until her death a year later. Ingeborg Wells died in 2014 in Hove, East Sussex. She was 95.
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3269/1, 1941-1944. Photo: K.L. Haenchen.
German postcard by Star Foto Hasemann. Photo: Herzog Film-Verleih.
West German collector card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Ufa / Hämmerer.
Sources: John Mills (The Independent), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line - German), Wikipedia (English, French and German) and IMDb.
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