Eva Kotthaus

Eva Kotthaus initially failed to make much headway attending an acting school in her home town. She had a brief spell trying her hand at studying photography, but soon plucked up the courage for a second go at her chosen profession and enrolled at the Otto Falckenberg Drama Academy in Munich where her teachers included well-known thespians Friedrich Domin and Siegfried Lowitz. Following her graduation, Eva made her stage debut in 1954 and soon established herself as a versatile character actress at several prestigious playhouses, including the Maxim-Gorki-Theater in the former East Berlin, and, from 1957, at the renowned Deutsches Theater in the West. She broke into the movies even before her theatrical career had properly gotten off the ground, her first roles being in Defa (East German) productions. Eva was cast as the female lead in just her second picture, Der Teufel vom Mühlenberg (1955), a fanciful adventure based on a medieval legend. The result was a box-office hit which attracted some 4.3 million cinema-goers. It also made the list as one of Defa's 30 most successful releases. Probably on the strength of this performance, Eva was selected to star in Sky Without Stars (1955). Filmed at the Bavaria Studios and directed by Helmut Käutner, this romantic drama with a tragic finale was both poignant and topical as it examined the human ramifications of Germany's division into East and West. While contemporary critics may have been divided (this, in spite of a 1956 Bambi Award for artistic merit), the film is now considered a classic of post-war German cinema. Eva, for her role as Anna Kaminski, received special praise as most promising newcomer of the year, winning the Filmband in Silber (Silver Award). Though seemingly on the cusp of movie stardom, she made only a few big screen appearances thereafter, including small supporting roles in the disappointing remake of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1957) and in The Nun's Story (1959). During the ensuing years, she remained focused on the stage while also taking on more television work, the latter often featuring her in adaptations of classic dramatic plays (as, for example, her Prothoe in Kleist's Penthesilea (1963) and as Caesar's wife Calpurnia in Die Verschwörung (1969)) or guest spots in popular serials (The Black Forest Hospital (1985), The Old Fox (1977), starring her erstwhile mentor Siegfried Lowitz, and Derrick (1974)). Her theatrical work included roles in major works by Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Shakespeare, Schiller and Hauptmann). In 1973, Eva Kotthaus was awarded the Hersfeld-Preis at the annual theatre festival in the Hessian town of Bad Hersfeld.