Wera Engels
Wera Engels was a daughter of a German Admiral and Governor of the then German colony Tsing-tau-China. After successful leading roles in productions of the well-established German UFA-studios in Babelsberg as well as in France, Engels was invited to Hollywood. Producers saw her as a cheap alternative to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. She was contracted with RKO.
Engels was given roles under Walter Futter and M.H. Hoffman. She and the silent movie super star Mary Pickford became best friends. By 1935 she returned to Germany, but left soon thereafter, because of the decline of the German movie industry caused by the Nazi propaganda machine. Back in Hollywood, she dated Gary Cooper for a while but married the Lithuanian-born actor/writer Ivan Lebedeff. After Lebedeff's death in 1953 of Angina pectoris, she moved back to Europe, where she stayed with several friends in London and Stockholm before she went back to Germany. She lived the rest of her life with Erna Hoffmann (widow of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's friend and personal photographer) in the Munich area.
She died on November 16, 1988 (age 79) in Munich, Germany.
Known For | Acting |
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Most Rating | 1.664 |
Birthday | 1909-05-12 |
Place of Birth | Kiel, Germany |
Also Known As |
1931
Scent of the Woman in Black
5/4
The story takes place on the Riviera, where the title character may or may not be involved in various shades of skullduggery, including murder.
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Scent of the Woman in Black
1935
Hong Kong Nights
3.5/2
Customs agents track a ring of arms smugglers into Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong Nights
1935
Sweepstake Annie
3.7/3
A young woman who works in the movie business buys a sweepstakes ticket that turns out to be a winner. Her stroke of luck changes her life around--and...
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Sweepstake Annie
1934
Fugitive Road
0/0
An Austrian officer must face up to the good and evil aspects of his own personality as he becomes involved in a war.
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Fugitive Road
1937
Talking About Jacqueline
5.2/4
Since her father died, rich and carefree Jacqueline Topelius makes magazine covers and causes social gossip with her flirtatious adventures around Eur...
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Talking About Jacqueline
1933
The Great Jasper
0/0
Generational saga about a failed streetcar conductor, who finds success as an Atlantic City fortune teller, and his son. Drama.
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The Great Jasper
1931
Lucky children
0/0
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Lucky children
1928
The Girl from Spree Woods
0/0
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The Girl from Spree Woods
1927
Mädchenhandel - Eine internationale Gefahr
0/0
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Mädchenhandel - Eine internationale Gefahr
1927
Lützow's Wild Hunt
0/0
Film by Richard Oswald.
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Lützow's Wild Hunt
1936
Stjenka Rasin
0/0
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Stjenka Rasin
1935
The Great Impersonation
0/0
The second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set largely in an old dark house where a tremulous wife wonders...
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The Great Impersonation
1930
The Gripper
5/1
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The Gripper
1927
Hast Du geliebt am schönen Rhein?
0/0
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Hast Du geliebt am schönen Rhein?
1928
Befehl zur Ehe
0/0
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Befehl zur Ehe
1935
Together We Live
0/0
A ham-handed cautionary fable against communism, the film concerns a group of Civil War veterans who are appalled by the burgeoning radical movement i...
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Together We Live
1931
English as it is spoken
0/0
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English as it is spoken
1927
Fighting the White Slave Traffic
0/0
A young woman in Berlin is offered a job at a night club in Budapest. There she is abducted and brought to a brothel in Athens.
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