SENTA BERGER |
It is well known that some film stars had tragic lives.
It is also commonly accepted that many stars fade
into sad oblivion, ignored and forgotten. It is not
generally recognised that a few stars, when their
period in the limelight is
over, make for themselves a
new life that is neither sad nor empty.
Senta Berger has made a notable success of her life. Widely respected and enormously popular, star and co-producer of many German speaking television programs, she lives today in Munich with her husband of nearly forty years, still astonishingly good-looking, politically active as a Social Democrat, campaigning for disarmament and for protecting the environment.
In the 1960s, Senta Berger was one of a small number of European actresses who graduated to English speaking, international movies. She quickly established herself in Hollywood as a Love Goddess. "Playboy" magazine, reviewing "Major Dundee" wrote: "They wanted Senta Berger in the movie - and who would not want her anywhere?"
For a time film producers wanted her in their movies and cinema go-ers wanted her on their screens because Senta was a more than adequate actress as well as being one of the sexiest women in films. And when it was all over, she conducted her retreat in an orderly manner, withdrawing first to Italy where she made further movies, and then to Austria and Germany where she moved into television while reviving her stage career.
Senta Berger was born in Vienna during the
Second World War. Her father was an
accomplished pianist and composer of
songs, and Senta has shown an interest in
music all her life. As a small child Senta was
sent to ballet classes but on reaching
puberty she gave up ballet. During her
period in Hollywood, Senta said she was
asked to leave by the teachers because her
figure had developed too fully. Later she said
that it was because her legs were not the
right length. (It might, of course, have been
for both reasons. Certainly by her late teens,
her body was that of a Love Goddess, not a
ballet dancer.)
On abandoning ballet Senta took up acting classes and in 1956, while still at school, she was advised to apply for a tiny part of a teenage girl in a film that was being planned, "Die Unentschuldigte Stunde". Senta won the role with its one line of dialogue, and decided that acting was to be her future profession.
She left her conventional school and enrolled at the Max Reinhardt school of acting. Before starting there, she won a second tiny part in a film and began to appear on stage. When in 1958 she accepted a small part in "The Journey" - her first in an English-speaking film - she was forced to leave the Max Reinhardt school as she had taken on the role without their permission.
Producer Artur Brauner offered Senta an important role in his film "Der Brave Soldat Schwejk" and tied her to a long-term contract. Brauner gave Senta star parts in several minor films but independently of Brauner, Senta also secured roles in various other movies including "The Secret Ways" co-produced by and starring Richard Widmark. The film unit spent six months in Vienna and there seems to have been some trouble with director Phil Karlson. Widmark himself directed during the last two weeks of production. Then Carl Foreman offered Senta a part in "The Victors" as Elke Sommer's sister. Foreman was later to say that the two actresses did not see eye to eye, but as that was also their relationship in the movie, nothing was done to bring them together.
Senta was busy throughout this period and wanted to dissolve her contract with Artur Brauner who
was describing her as his discovery yet refusing to increase her salary. Brauner threatened Senta
with a law suit for DM 300,000-00. The issue was resolved by Senta making one final film for
Brauner and then working abroad.
When Senta Berger went to Hollywood in the early 1960s, the old commercial certainties had vanished. Unsure of what would attract paying customers, and increasingly being taken over by big business conglomerates, the studios were trying to reduce their costs by employing new acting talent with a lower price tag, while granting more and more freedom to directors and stars with proven box-office success.
Within this scenario, there was an opportunity for Senta Berger. She made several films in the next few years while playing the publicity game with skill. Photographs of her were distributed widely on both sides of the Atlantic, and appeared constantly in both newspapers and magazines. In interviews she spoke simply but candidly, dismissing mini-skirts - at that time the fashion rage - as "for kids", while declaring that her vital statistics were the same as Sophia Loren's, and then mentioning that Sophia was three inches taller.
As an actress, Senta was always competent - no-one ever gave her a bad review - and always attractive to look at, but limited by the lack of ambition in films of that period. Sam Peckinpah used her in "Major Dundee", a much troubled production of which a 'director's cut' would be very welcome, and she worked in "The Glory Guys", for which Peckinpah wrote the screenplay. Peckinpah described Senta as 'a nice lady' and they worked together much later in "Cross Of Iron".
It was during her period in Hollywood that Senta
married - without any publicity. She gave a good
performance in "Cast A Giant Shadow" and was splendidly enigmatic
in "The Quiller Memorandum", but was
also saddled with dross like "The Ambushers"
and "The Spy With My Face".
When the Hollywood power regimes underwent their total shake-out at the end of the '60s, Senta Berger's English language career came to an end. She later admitted that there was no place for her in films like "Easy Rider" and that she and the new heads of studios did not think along the same lines. She compared her situation with that of Marlene Dietrich decades earlier, pointing out that Dietrich had parts created specifically to show her off. Senta returned to Europe.
Throughout the 1970s, despite giving birth to two children, she made several films in France and Italy, and then went to Germany where she and her husband formed their own television production company with great success. Senta has also returned to her first love, the stage and is a regular player in both Munich and Salzburg.