Helene Weigel was born on May 12, 1900 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. She is known for her work on Mother Courage and Her Children (1961), Señora Carrar's Rifles (1953) and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1955). She was married to Bertolt Brecht. She died on May 6, 1971 in East Berlin, East Germany.
Daughter of Siegfried Weigl and Leopoldine Pollak. Niece of Arthur Weigl and his wife Emma, cousin of their children Trude (b. 1896), Irma and Egon Weigl (1901-1979). Egon is the father of Vladimir Weigl and Sanda Weigl.
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Stepmother of Frank Banholzer (1919-1943) and Hanne Hiob.
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As she was Jewish and her husband Bertolt Brecht an opponent of the Nazis, they fled Germany in 1933 and finally settled down in the US in 1941. They returned to Europe in 1947 because Brecht was considered to be a communist.
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While she became a respected stage actress on several stages in the 1920s, she studied dramaturgy under Max Reinhardt in Berlin.