Senta Berger - Career

Career

Bernhard Wicki and Arthur Brauner produced the film The Good Soldier Schweijk with Berger and the German actor Heinz Rühmann. Brauner used Berger in several films, but she soon tired of musicals. In 1962, she went to Hollywood and worked with stars such as Charlton Heston, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, John Wayne, and Yul Brynner. She returned to Germany to accept an offer for a role in a series, which would have brought an obligation of several years.

In 1963, Berger met Michael Verhoeven, son of the German film director Paul Verhoeven (not to be confused with the Dutch Paul Verhoeven). They started their own film production company in 1965. In 1966, Senta and Michael married. In 1970, she starred for the first time in a film produced by her own company and directed by her husband. Other internationally successful films made by the duo included, amongst others, Die weiße Rose, The Nasty Girl (Das schreckliche Mädchen) and Mutters Courage. Berger continued to develop her European career in France and Italy.

In November 1964, she guest starred in an episode of the U.S. television show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, entitled "The Double Affair". It was later expanded and released in cinemas as the feature film The Spy with My Face (1965). In 1966, Berger co-starred with Kirk Douglas in the movie Cast a Giant Shadow. Berger played the role of Magda, a soldier in the Israeli army during the Israeli War of Independence (1948). She played the role of a German schoolteacher involved in neo-Nazi activity opposite Max von Sydow and George Segal in The Quiller Memorandum, also released in 1966.

In 1967, Berger acted in the pilot movie for the Robert Wagner television series It Takes a Thief, which aired on American television network ABC on January 9, 1968. She reprised her role in the series in October 1969, in an episode in which her character was killed off.

In 1977, she was head of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. 21 years later, she was part of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.

In the '70s, Photoplay Film Monthly said, "Approaching motherhood, Senta, the one-time militant feminist, has reverted to a docile feminine woman, just like the girl next-door." ("Starlet," Kim Holston, 1988, McFarland).

Following the birth of her two sons (including the actor-director Simon Verhoeven), Berger returned to theatre work. She played at the Burgtheater in Vienna, at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg and at the Schillertheater in Berlin. Between 1974 and 1982, she played the “Buhlschaft” in the play Jedermann at the Salzburg Festival with Curd Jürgens and Maximilian Schell. She also acted alongside Schell and James Coburn in a supporting role in the acclaimed war film Cross of Iron (1977). In 1985–86, Berger started a comeback in front of German-speaking audiences in the TV serial Kir Royal. Further serial hits followed, like The Fast Gerti, where she played a taxi driver.

In the same year, she also started a career as a singer of Chansons. 2005 saw her in the film, Einmal so wie ich will, as a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage who finds love on holiday, but turns her back on the relationship.

Since February 2003, Berger has been president of the German Film Academy, which seeks to advance the new generation of actors and actresses in Germany and Europe. The Academy will decide the assignment of the German Film Awards in the future.