HENNY PORTEN

Henny Porten was a German actress who is virtually forgotten today, but in her time, she was one of the most important German actresses of all time (but because she solely made German movies, she is almost unknown in the U.S.). She was similar to Lillian Gish in that she started in early silents, but she predates Gish in that she made her first movie in 1906 at the age of 16. She was very busy throughout the 1910s, and she was a major star in the 1920s, but in the mid 1930s, she ran into a major problem when she refused to divorce her Jewish husband, and that greatly diminished the number of films she was allowed to appear in (but the Nazis took no further action against her because she was so popular). She only made 10 movies between 1931 and 1944, and after the war, she appeared in three more in the 1950s, making her last film in 1955, 49 years after her first film, having appeared in an amazing 180 movies, all of which were made in Germany. She passed away in 1960 at the age of 70. Surely a movie could and should be made of her life!