Lilli Palmer, born Lillie Marie Peiser, (May 24, 1914 – January 27, 1986) was a Golden Globe nominated German actress.
Palmer, who took her surname from an English actress she admired, was one of three daughters born to Dr. Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish stage actress in Posen, Prussia, Germany (now Poznań, Poland). When Lilli was four her family moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg. She studied drama in Berlin before fleeing to Paris in 1933 following the Nazi takeover. While performing in cabarets, she attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by Gaumont-British. She made her screen debut in Crime Unlimited (1935) and appeared in British films for the next decade.
In 1943, she married actor Rex Harrison and followed 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 also 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 50s 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. Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1957. During the marriage, Harrison had many affairs, including one with Carole Landis, who committed suicide in 1948 in the wake of their failed relationship. They had one son, Rex Carey Alfred Harrison, born in 1944.
Palmer went on to play both leading and supporting parts in the U.S. and abroad. She starred opposite William Holden in an espionage thriller based on fact, The Counterfeit Traitor (1962), and opposite Robert Taylor in another true World War II story, Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions, in 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 World War II, with Brian Keith, Sir John Mills, and Barry Morse.
She was married to Argentine actor Carlos Thompson from 1958 until her death in Los Angeles from cancer in 1986 at the age of 71. A talented writer, she published her memoirs Change Lobsters and Dance in 1975 and a novel, The Red Raven in 1978.
Lilli Palmer is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Awards
Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7013 Hollywood Blvd.
Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
Partial filmography
Crime Unlimited (1935)
Secret Agent (1936)
Good Morning, Boys (1937)
The Door with Seven Locks (1940)
Thunder Rock (1942)
The Gentle Sex (1943)
The Rake's Progress (1945)
Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Body and Soul (1947)
The Four Poster (1952)
Feuerwerk (1954)
Les Amants de Montparnasse (The Lovers of Montparnasse) (1958)
Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform) (1958)
But Not for Me (1959)
Conspiracy of Hearts (1960)
The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
The Counterfeit Traitor (1962)
Miracle of the White Stallions (1963)
Operation Crossbow (1965)
The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
Sebastian (1968)
De Sade (1969)
The Other Side of the Wind (1972) (unreleased)
Lotte in Weimar (1974)
The Boys from Brazil (1978)
The Holcroft Covenant (1985)
References
Palmer, Lilli. Change Lobsters and Dance: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 0-02-594610-2
External links
Lilli Palmer at the Internet Movie Database
Lilli Palmer's Gravesite
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilli_Palmer"
Categories: German film actors | German stage actors | German television actors | Hollywood Walk of Fame | German-American Jews | Jewish actors | German-American actors | German immigrants to the United States | Deaths from cancer | Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) | People from the Province of Posen | People from Poznań | 1914 births | 1986 deaths
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This page was last modified on 1 August 2008, at 00:53.
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