Anny Ondra

Silent films and Czech cinema

In a 1934 interview in Kinorevue, Ondra remembered, "[a]lthough I was a good student, the school wasn't happy with me because of my lively temperament. The nuns even insisted that I would never amount to anything ... I swim like a fish, ride like a cowboy, and I'd love to put all of these talents to use on screen … I most enjoy playing spirited young girls, as this allows me to showcase not only my naturally cheerful disposition but also my athletic abilities."

She began her film acting career at the age of 17 in the film Palimpsest (1919), directed by Lamač. After the First World War, the profession of an actress was not socially respected by some in Czech society, and her father hoped that she would pursue a secure administrative career, reportedly as a postal clerk, so when her family found out about her acting and her relationship with Lamač, there was an argument with her parents. She moved out to live with Lamač, and only the success of the film Lady with the Small Foot (Dáma s malou nožkou) (1920) convinced her parents of her talent.

She spoke Czech, German, English, and French, which helped her later international film career. Her breakthrough was in the 1920 film Gilly in Prague for the First Time (Gilly poprvé v Praze). In the years that followed, she took on numerous film roles, mostly in ingénue parts, and became one of the most popular comediennes of Czech film, and a fashion icon. She starred in two Czech films released within a week of each other in 1921, The Arrival from the Darkness (Příchozí z temnot) and The Poisoned Light (Otrávené světlo), both directed by Jan S. Kolár. They were two of the first Czech films to achieve success in international distribution. In 1921 and 1922 she worked in Vienna and, with the Austrian company Sascha-Film, owned by Alexander Joseph "Sascha", Count Kolowrat-Krakowsky, she starred in successful situation comedies. The most significant film for her during this period was Gypsy Love (Zigeunerliebe) (1922). Other films included That Stone Right There (Tu ten kámen) (1923) and Karel Havlíček Borovský (1925).

Throughout the 1920s, she worked closely with Lamač through their joint film company Kalos-film, founded by Alfred Baštýř [cs], a supporter of Czech cinema in Czechoslovakia during the 1920s. Lamač directed her in several silent films, acted with her in films directed by other filmmakers, and they continued to work together after her marriage.

British films

After a few years of starring in various European productions, Ondra had become an international star, and her fame had outgrown the possibilities of the Czech domestic market. She worked in Germany and Austria during 1925 and 1926, and in 1927, she was approached by producers from England, where she appeared in four dramas. Despite The Film Daily describing her usual roles as "the little hoyden who worms herself into a series of complications" in romantic comedies, her British films were darker in tone. The first two, God's Clay and Glorious Youth (both 1928) were directed by Graham Cutts. In God's Clay, she plays a woman involved in a murder and its concealment, a part in which, according to a review in The Bioscope, she "makes a promising appearance" albeit given to overacting.

Her most notable appearances were in Alfred Hitchcock's The Manxman and Blackmail (both 1929), in which her characters were the first "Hitchcock blondes", that is, beautiful, haunted, and caught in a web of guilt or peril. In the latter film, she stabs a potential rapist to death in self-defence. Blackmail was started as a silent film; in the course of production, it was decided to make it what is frequently cited as the first British sound feature film. A minute-long test film where Ondra speaks English has survived, in which Hitchcock teases her to get an emotional response by asking if she is a "bad woman" and if she slept with men, making her laugh with embarrassment. Her accent was considered unacceptably strong and unsuited to her role as the daughter of a London tobacconist/newsagent, but Hitchcock did not want to do without her as an actress, so he had her part dubbed by British actress Joan Barry. The dubbing took place in an unusual way: Ondra moved her lips, and Barry spoke the text outside the picture. However, despite the film's being one of the most successful releases of that year and receiving critical praise, Ondra made no further films in Britain. It is said that the Hitchcocks visited her every time they were in Germany, and she sent them cards every Christmas.

German and other European films

Ondra became popular in the Austrian and German markets with the films Die Pratermizzi (1926), Eve's Daughters (Evas Töchter) (1928) and Sinful and Sweet (Sündig und süß) (1929), going on to make some forty more films in the sound era. The first sound-film role in which she spoke her own dialogue was Fairground People (Die vom Rummelplatz) (1930), titled Sensation (Sensace) in Czechoslovakia. Over the course of her career, she played dozens of roles in German and Austrian films, and made a few appearances in Czech sound films. Some of the Czech sound films in which she featured were also produced in foreign-language versions, and she appeared in several French films. Her popularity in Germany peaked in the mid-1930s, during which time she played the lead in big-budget Ufa productions.

From 1930, Ondra also worked as a film producer in partnership with Lamač, and they founded the Berlin-based production company Ondra-Lamac-Film GmbH. Ondra-Lamač-Film produced exclusively sound films, and Ondra was credited as co-producer of several films beginning with Fairground People.

The creative team of Anny Ondra, Karel Lamač, cinematographer Otto Heller, and screenwriter, film actor and director Václav Wasserman were sometimes referred to as "the Great Four" of interwar Czech film.

Her final Czech-language film was the comedy Cause for Divorce (Důvod k rozvodu) (1937), in which she appeared alongside Oldřich Nový and Adina Mandlová. She subsequently continued her career in German-language films.

Ondra continued acting in popular German comedy films throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, usually in the role of a "nice and capricious young girl". While her films were standard commercial entertainment produced within the heavily controlled German film industry rather than explicit political propaganda, all film production in Germany at the time fell under the oversight of Joseph Goebbels's Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. She retired from filmmaking in 1943, apart from an appearance in the West German musical You Have to Be Beautiful (Schön muss man sein) (1951), and a cameo performance as herself in The Zürich Engagement (Die Zürcher Verlobung) (1957). Her filmography comprises over ninety roles.

Film image and character

Ondra's appearance was an important part of her star image. She became known in the press for her slim legs, which were emphasised in films such as Lady with the Small Foot. She also helped cultivate this image by posing for studio photographs in shorts and short skirts. In 1931, German film publicity advertised her as "the girl with the beautiful legs" ("das Mädel mit den schönen Beinen").

According to Deutsche Biographie, "[t]hrough a style of grotesque comedy–which earned her the label of a "female Buster Keaton"–as well as frenetic physical movement and dance sequences, she was able to transcend the confines of the demure, maidenly ideal. Small in stature, slender, and light-footed, she exuded a mischievous, sprite-like charm. Her characters were proactive; they sought out and won the men of their hearts, often displaying a blend of coquetry and self-deprecating irony … Along with contemporaries such as Käthe von Nagy and Carola Neher, O[ndra] helped define a fashionable, youthful, androgynous, and emancipated female archetype characteristic of the late 1920s."

The Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum comments that "[i]n her films of the 1920s, the age of flappers, "It"- girls, and jazz babes, Anny Ondra stood for agility, exuberant talent, silliness, and self-deprecating humor."

German-born writer, art and film theorist Rudolf Arnheim wrote, "[s]he possessed something of Buster Keaton's cool beauty and his acrobatic and dance-like talent."

Czech film actor Otomar Korbelář said, "[s]he was like quicksilver; even during breaks in filming, no one could keep her still–yet she remained ever fresh, as if hungry for both life and work. And she was very pretty, with curly blonde hair. Even when she was supposed to look serious, she seemed to be wearing a mischievous smile. You never knew if she might be about to play some prank on you. She had a delightful way with words–never mean-spirited, but rather endearingly childlike."

In the opinion of Václav Wasserman, "Anny Ondráková wasn't just a gifted actress– she was a personality!"

A short obituary by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain recalls that "in the early Thirties … she was loved by a wide audience."

Relationship with Karel Lamač

Ondra and Lamač were romantically involved for several years and remained lifelong friends after their relationship ended. According to some later Czech biographical accounts, Ondra wanted to marry and start a family with him, but Lamač repeatedly deferred marriage, reportedly citing his professional commitments.

Marriage to Max Schmeling

In 1930, she was introduced to the German boxer Max Schmeling, who was later the world heavyweight champion from 1930 to 1932, becoming a national hero as the first German to hold the title. They were officially married on 6 July 1933, with a religious ceremony following on 20 July 1933, in Bad Saarow, Brandenburg. Their marriage was a close one, and lasted 54 years.

Ondra and Schmeling appeared together in the film Knockout (Knockout – Ein Junges Mädchen, ein Junger Mann) (1935), and she subsequently moved to Germany to live with him. Her friend Lída Baarová later recalled that in 1936, three years into their marriage, Ondra miscarried after a car accident.

Sometime after Schmeling's high-profile return from the United States in 1936, where he had knocked out American rising star Joe Louis, the couple faced another misfortune: their relatively new home in Bad Saarow, built in 1933, burned down. Ondra later admitted that she had to stage a little scene to dissuade Schmeling from making dangerous attempts to rescue the household belongings. As a result, however, they lost some of their family possessions.

Ondra and Schmeling's life under the Nazi regime

Postwar allegations and denazification

The assessment of David Margolick, who has written extensively about Schmeling's wartime record and postwar reputation, is that although loyal to Jews he knew personally, during the war years Schmeling showed "microcourage and macrocowardice", and that he "never said any more than he had to to stay in the Nazis' good graces. He did not spout Nazi rhetoric or wrap himself in the swastika." Though, "[w]henever the Nazis asked him to pitch in, he obliged." Ondra's actions are less clear, and Margolick's analysis cannot automatically be transferred to her.

After Germany's defeat the couple were suspected of collaboration, documented in a file in their joint names. In Western Allied-occupied Germany, Schmeling underwent denazification (Entnazifizierung) proceedings, and was cleared of political collaboration with the Nazi regime and classified as exonerated (Entlastete). Whether Ondra was questioned and her final status is unknown. Separately and unrelated to the collaboration investigation, on 13 May 1946, a military court sentenced Schmeling to three months in prison and a fine of 10,000 Reichsmarks for failing to comply with building regulations while constructing a house for himself and his wife. He was required to pay the fine and serve the full term of imprisonment.

Some Czech accounts report that a Czechoslovak arrest warrant for collaboration was issued against Ondra after the war; other accounts report that both Ondra and Schmeling faced postwar accusations of collaboration. The subsequent legal status of any warrant for Ondra is unknown. This accusation, and the rise to power of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1948, made it unlikely she could safely return to her country of birth, and she lived in West Germany afterwards.

Later life and death

After the war, the couple was left without funds or property. In 1949, they moved to Hollenstedt, near Hamburg. Together, they started a mink farm business on their land. Later, Schmeling became a senior manager at the Coca-Cola Company. From April 1952, Ondra and Schmeling lived in Styria, Austria; Lamač remained her friend throughout his lifetime, and it was there that they received the news of his death on 2 August 1952 in Hamburg. They managed to return in time to attend his funeral.

Ondra never returned to Czechoslovakia, though she often reminisced about it. In 1965, the magazine Kino published a unique interview with Ondra, in which she looked back nostalgically on her homeland, her relatives, and her friends:

I often think back to home, to Moravia, where I used to spend my school holidays … I have relatives there, and a few acquaintances in Prague, Václav Wasserman, for instance, though many have since passed away … I would love to visit Czechoslovakia and talk with friends, directors, and actors. Perhaps they haven't forgotten me entirely. After all, I've been here in Germany for 37 years now. I'll be quite nervous when I arrive in Prague; my Czech isn't what it used to be–my husband, for example, only knows how to say 'How are you?' in Czech. Still, I'm confident that I'll soon find my flow again. It's only natural that I might get a bit emotional. Later, we can talk at length about everything that's so difficult to put into writing …

Ondra and Schmeling's marriage was a happy one, although childless. According to the Schmeling Foundation, "[t]hroughout her life, Anny was lovingly cared for by her Max. The secret to this perfect marriage was the respectful way they treated one another. Arguments between the two were rare. Max and Anny slept in separate rooms; she preferred a palatial bedchamber, while Max lived somewhat more modestly in a simply furnished room. Each in their own space, yet united nonetheless."

She died on 28 February 1987, in Hollenstedt, West Germany, where she is buried in the Catholic Saint Andreas Friedhof cemetery.

In 1997, her husband sent 30,000 marks to the Czech Republic to help address the damage caused by devastating floods. Schmeling died in 2005 and was buried next to her. In accordance with their wishes, the estate of Anna Ondráková and Max Schmeling was bequeathed to a foundation bearing Schmeling's name, the Max Schmeling Stiftung. They also left a significant portion to the SOS Children's Villages organisation.