Misplaced Pages

Lilli Palmer
Palmer in Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Born	Lilli Marie Peiser (1914-05-24)24 May 1914 Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (Poznań, Poland)
Died	27 January 1986(1986-01-27) (aged 71) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Nationality	German
Years active	1935–1986
Spouses	Rex Harrison ​ ​(m. 1943; div. 1957)​ Carlos Thompson ​ ​(m. 1957)​
Children	Carey Harrison
Relatives	Irene Prador (sister)

Lilli Palmer (German: [ˈlɪ.li ˈpal.mɐ] ; born Lilli Marie Peiser; 24 May 1914 – 27 January 1986) was a German actress and writer. After beginning her career in British films in the 1930s, she would later transition to major Hollywood productions, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in But Not for Me (1959).

Other notable roles include in the comedy The Pleasure of His Company (1961), the Spanish horror film The House That Screamed (1969), and in the miniseries Peter the Great (1986), which earned her another Golden Globe Award nomination. For her career in European films, Palmer won the Volpi Cup, and the Deutscher Filmpreis three times.

Early life

Palmer, who took her surname from an English actress she admired, was one of three daughters born to Alfred Peiser [de], a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lißmann (or Lissmann), a German Jewish stage actress in Posen, Germany (today Poznań, Poland).

When Lilli was four years old, her family moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg. She was a junior table tennis champion as a young girl.

Career

In France, she appeared in an operetta at the Moulin Rouge, and then to London, where she began her film career. While performing in cabarets, she attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by the Gaumont Film Company. She made her screen debut in Crime Unlimited (1935) and appeared in numerous British films for the next decade.

She married British actor Rex Harrison on 25 January 1943, and travelled with him to Hollywood in 1945. She signed with Warner Brothers and appeared in several films, notably Cloak and Dagger (1946) and Body and Soul (1947).

She periodically appeared in stage plays as well as hosting her own television series in 1951. Harrison and Palmer appeared together in the hit Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle in the early 1950s. They also appeared in the 1951 British melodrama The Long Dark Hall, and later starred in the film version of The Four Poster (1952), which was based on the award-winning Broadway play of the same name, written by Jan de Hartog. She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in 1953 for The Four Poster.

Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1956; they had one son, Carey, born in 1944.

Palmer returned to Germany in 1954, where she played roles in many films and television productions. She also continued to play both leading and supporting parts in the U.S. and abroad. In 1957, she won the Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Actress for her portrayal of Anna Anderson in The Story of Anastasia, called Is Anna Anderson Anastasia? in the UK. In 1958, she played the role of a teacher opposite Romy Schneider in Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform), the remake of the 1931 film of the same title.

Palmer starred with Fred Astaire and Debbie Reynolds in The Pleasure of His Company in 1961.

She starred opposite William Holden in The Counterfeit Traitor (1962), an espionage thriller based on fact, and opposite Robert Taylor in another true Second World War story, Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions (1963). On the small screen, in 1974 she starred as Manouche Roget in the six-part television drama series The Zoo Gang, about a group of former underground freedom fighters from the Second World War, with Brian Keith, Sir John Mills and Barry Morse.

Palmer published a memoir, Change Lobsters and Dance, in 1975. She wrote a full-length work of fiction presented as a novel rather than a memoir, The Red Raven, in 1978.

Personal life

Palmer's first marriage was to Rex Harrison in 1943. They divorced amicably in 1957, so that he could marry ailing actress Kay Kendall before her untimely death. Palmer agreed since she was already involved with her future husband, Carlos Thompson.

Palmer was married to Argentine actor Carlos Thompson from 1957 until her death in Los Angeles from abdominal cancer in 1986 at the age of 71. She was survived by her husband, son, sisters, and her ex-husband.

Palmer is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. A portion of the ashes of her first husband, Rex Harrison, were scattered on her grave.

Accolades

• 1953: Volpi Cup for Best Actress for The Four Poster
• 1956: Deutscher Filmpreis (Silver) for Best Actress in Teufel in Seide
• 1957: Deutscher Filmpreis (Silver) for Best Actress in Anastasia, die letzte Zarentochter
• 1959: Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination for But Not for Me
• 1972: Goldene Kamera for Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (ZDF TV)
• Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7013 Hollywood Blvd.
• 1974: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
• 1978: Deutscher Filmpreis (Gold) for Lifetime Achievement
• 1986: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film nomination for Peter the Great

Filmography

Film

Television

Radio appearances

References

1. ^ Luft, Herbert C. (5 August 1960). "On the Screen". Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. p. 3. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
2. "Lili Palmer, actress: Still understated at 70". Toledo Blade. 26 May 1984. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
3. Bergfelder & Cargnelli 2008, p. 176.
4. "Body and Soul (1947)". Turner Classic Movies Database. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
5. Kleiman, Dena (29 January 1986). "Lilli Palmer, actress on TV, stage and screen for 50 years". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
6. "Venice Film Festival: History 1932–2018 – Coppa Volpi for best actors since 1935", labiennale.org. Accessed 31 July 2023.
7. ^ Folkart, Burt (29 January 1986). "Lilli Palmer, Actress and Best-Selling Author, Dies". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
8. "Maedchen in Uniform". Turner Classic Movies Database. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
9. "The Pleasure of His Company". Turner Classic Movies Database. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
10. "TV: Zoo Gang on NBC" by John J. O'Connor, The New York Times, July 16, 1975. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
11. Palmer, Lilli (1978). The Red Raven: A Novel. Macmillan. ISBN 9780025946309.
12. "Lilli Palmer". Jewish Women's Archive. Archived from the original on 20 June 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
13. "A Final Curtain Call: Rex Harrison (1908-1990)". 2 July 2014.
14. Moliterno 2009, p. 352.
15. ^ "Deutscher Filmpreis-Lilli Palmer". Deutscher Film Preis (in German). Archived from the original on 25 December 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
16. ^ "Lilli Palmer". Golden Globes. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
17. Kniewel, Peter (1979). Unser Fernsehen, 1952–1979: Geschichte und Geschichten des Mediums, der Menschen, der Sender und Sendungen. Springer. pp. 66–67 – via Google Books.
18. Folkart, Burt. "Lilli Palmer". Los Angeles Times. Hollywood Star Walk. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
19. "Philomel Cottage". escape-suspense.com. 16 April 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
20. Kirby, Walter (30 March 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". Decatur Daily Review. p. 46. Retrieved 18 May 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
21. Kirby, Walter (18 October 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". Decatur Daily Review. p. 48. Retrieved 6 July 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
22. Kirby, Walter (22 November 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". Decatur Daily Review. p. 46 – via Newspapers.com.

Bibliography

• Bergfelder, Tim; Cargnelli, Christian, eds. (2008). Speaking Emigres and British Cinema, 1925–1950. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-532-3.
• Moliterno, Gino (2009). The A to Z of Italian Cinema. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6896-0.

Further reading

• McClintock, Walter (1951). Current biography yearbook: 1951. New York: H. W. Wilson.
• Palmer, Lilli. Change Lobsters and Dance: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 978-0-02-594610-1

External links

• Lilli Palmer at IMDb
• Lilli Palmer at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lilli Palmer at Find a Grave
• Photographs and literature

• Biography
• Film

• 1914 births
• 1986 deaths
• German film actresses
• Actresses from Berlin
• German television actresses
• Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Jewish German actresses
• Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
• Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
• People from the Province of Posen
• Actresses from Poznań
• Deaths from cancer in California
• Volpi Cup for Best Actress winners
• 20th-century German actresses
• 20th-century German women writers
• 20th-century German non-fiction writers
• Jewish German writers
• Jewish women writers