| Marlene Schmidt | |
|---|---|
.jpg) 1965 ASME award | |
| Born | (1937-11-11) 11 November 1937 (age 87) Breslau, Germany |
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) |
| Beauty pageant titleholder | |
| Title | Miss Germany 1961 Miss Universe 1961 |
| Major competition(s) | Miss Germany 1961 (Winner) Miss Universe 1961 (Winner) |
Marlene Schmidt (born 11 November 1937) is a German control engineer, actress, television host, and beauty queen who won Miss Universe 1961.
Life
Born in Breslau, Germany and raised in East Germany, where she earned a master's degree in engineering, in 1960, she and her family fled to Stuttgart in West Germany, where she got a job as an electronics engineer. In 1961, she entered the state pageant of Baden-Württemberg in the hope of winning the car that was offered as a prize. From there, she went on to represent her state in the national pageant in Baden-Baden, where she was crowned Miss Germany in 1961. She then went on to win the Miss Universe pageant against 47 other participants. She was at that time the tenth consecutive German entrant to reach the semifinals of the event (then a record) and is the first (and to date only) German to be crowned Miss Universe.
In 1962, Schmidt became the third of eight wives of the American actor Ty Hardin. They settled in the United States. The marriage lasted until 1966. They had one daughter, Schmidt's only child.
She continued her engineering career for a while, and in 1967 was a technical consultant for Sier-Bath Gear Co, New Jersey.
From 1972 to 1986, Schmidt was involved in the movie industry, where she acquired credits as an actress, producer and writer in eleven productions. None of the films achieved particular merit for plot or other production values apart from generally offering a liberal dose of female nudity, albeit the 1972 skin-fest The Stepmother distinguished itself by receiving an Oscar nomination for its musical score.
Eventually Schmidt returned to Germany, where she lives in Saarbrücken.
Filmography
Marlene Schmidt was involved in the following movies as actress and producer:
- 1968: Red Plain
- 1972: The Stepmother ¹
- 1974: The Teacher ¹
- 1975: The Specialist ²
- 1975: Dr. Minx ¹
- 1976: Scorchy ¹
- 1978: Texas Detour ¹
- 1978: The Fifth Floor ²
- 1981: Separate Ways ²
- 1983: Mortuary ¹
- 1984: They're Playing with Fire ²
- 1986: Kidnapped ¹
¹ actress and producer
² additional writing credit
References
- "Willowy Silver-Blonde German Reigns As New Miss Universe". The Sumter Daily Item. 1961-07-17.
- ^ Popper, Herbert. "What you should know about women engineers". Chemical Engineering. American Institute of Chemical Engineers: 165–172.
- "Marlene Schmidt - Biography". IMDB. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
- Official Miss Germany Website Archived 2008-02-15 at the Wayback Machine (German)
Further reading
- Veit Didczuneit, Dirk Külow: Miss Germany. Die deutsche Schönheitskönigin. S & L MedienContor, Hamburg, 1998; ISBN 3-931962-94-6
External links
- Marlene Schmidt at IMDb
- Article in Der Spiegel (2001 / German)
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
Preceded by Linda Bement
|
Miss Universe 1961 |
Succeeded by Norma Nolan
|
| Miss Universe 1961 national titleholders | |
|---|---|
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| Miss Germany winners in the Big Four beauty pageants | ||
|---|---|---|
| Miss Universe |  | |
| Miss World | ||
| Miss International | ||
| Miss Earth |
| |
| Major international pageant titleholders (1961) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
| Miss Universe Organization titleholders (1961) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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- 1937 births
- 20th-century German actresses
- East German emigrants to West Germany
- German beauty pageant winners
- Emigrants from West Germany to the United States
- German film actresses
- Living people
- Miss Universe 1961 contestants
- Miss Universe winners
- Actresses from Wrocław
- 20th-century German women engineers
- 20th-century German engineers
- German women engineers
- American women engineers
- German actor stubs
- European beauty pageant contestant stubs