Hitler convinced her to make Nazi films, and she helped the Jews: Asta Nielsen, the world's first film actress

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Cinematography as a technology began with the invention of film, the camera and the projector. But cinema as art - only with the appearance of the first professional film actors. And film actresses. And the first among them is Asta Nielsen, a Danish woman who conquered the European and Russian audiences, the leader of the Nazis and a Russian actor.

The critics were almost unanimous. Her face is mesmerizing. Her acting is something that cinema has never seen before: zero pretentiousness, no grotesque, pure naturalness of every gesture and every look. Before her, there was an attempt to imitate the theater with its characteristic pre-war antics; film acting began with her.

The girl my mother taught obscene songs

Asta was born in Copenhagen in 1881. Despite the surname, she has nothing to do with the famous Art Nouveau illustrator Kai Nielsen - such a surname in Denmark is similar to ours in Russia "Petrov".

She inherited her appearance, which is atypical for a Danish woman - large brown eyes, black hair - from her father. Jens Christian Nielsen was the son of the widow Nielsen and an unknown person - perhaps a gypsy or a Jew. He was short and thin. Asta recalled that her father was always very careful about his appearance, grooming a lush mustache and naturally beautiful hands. As a child, he did not manage to get an education, so that as an adult he counted hard and slowly, but he himself, having spent a lot of effort, learned to write and wrote, albeit finely, but very beautifully. This stubborn character, love of beauty and perfection, he later presented to Asta.

Barely becoming a young husband, Jens saved the life of a teenage apprentice at a construction site. As it turned out later, at the cost of their own health. All subsequent years he suffered from heart problems. Every now and then he had to leave work due to another attack of illness.

Asta was born in poverty. She could not remember not only her father, but also her older sister Johanna healthy.

When Asta (then according to the metric - Sofia Amalia) was still a baby, the Nielsen family moved to Malmö, Sweden, in search of a better life. Jens worked at the mill under the supervision of one of his brothers-in-law, Ida also worked part-time. She had a habit of singing at work; it amused both her and the children. In addition to songs, Ida knew many tragic long poems, and the Nielsen girls loved listening to them in the evenings by the hearth.

Asta, a real angel in appearance, grew up a daredevil. It was worn all over the area, fell into ditches and was punished more than once for torn stockings. Children, however, tried to pamper: they always celebrated birthdays, with treats and homemade gifts. During his long illness, the father made toys for his daughters.

Asta used to be different at school. The handicraft teacher allowed the girls to take turns singing in class. When it was Asta's turn for the first time, she innocently sang a song about how the old and mischievous wife of Noah had shit on his boots. The girls in the class were amazed. The teacher, fortunately, had the tact not to arrange a trial over a naive Danish girl in class; she only asked who taught Asta this song (of course, mom!) and told the next girl to sing.

Theater: you, girl, will make a great girl. Or boy

When Asta was already a teenager, her father, after long torment, died. Grief from the loss of her dad did not prevent Asta from dreaming. She realized that she would like to be an actress, to play in the theater. It seemed impossible. The family was poor. Ida washed the floors and took the laundry to wash, ruining her health, Johanna worked 12 hours a day at the factory. And yet the family's darling was allowed to "mess around."

At fourteen, Asta entered a student with Peter Yerndorf (free!), And he prepared her for admission to the Copenhagen Royal Theater school - after the death of her father, the family returned to Denmark. By twenty, Asta had already taken place as an actress, performed in theaters in Copenhagen, went on tour to Sweden, Norway, Finland.

Due to the slenderness and youth, Nielsen got mainly comedic roles - young, frivolous girls and boys. Her playing style was very different from the generally accepted one, and the press scattered in praise of her ease, temperament, originality of interpretations.

At this time, the actress kept a secret from the public - the illegitimate daughter Yestu, who was born in 1901. Asta never called her father to anyone. Miracle, but this turn of events was accepted by her family. Ida raised her granddaughter in the same way as her own daughters, Johanna also loved to tinker with Yesta, Asta herself doted on the baby. A loving family, an upward career - Nielsen's life was definitely improving.

But Asta dreamed of dramatic roles, and the theatrical world, it seems, has already established a role for her for the rest of her life.

And fate sent her Urban Gad. A young, ambitious theater artist and journalist decided to make the first film in his life. Some say - for Asta's sake.

How to make history by making a movie for a penny

The film crew had a lot of money. We rented a prison yard - like a pavilion - and several prison cells - for dressing rooms. The scenery and the actors were rearranged all day, because there was no other lighting except the sun, but it was moving.

The film was called The Abyss. According to the plot, the music teacher Magda fell in love with a circus performer, broke with her former life and fiancé, and performed erotic dances in the same circus with her beloved. Soon she realizes that the circus performer does not love her, and in despair stabs him with a dagger. In the finale, the arrested Magda is led by the police, and Asta's face in this scene still makes a strong impression on the audience.

The film was in the taste of the times, and Asta's acting, well aware that cinema needs a different body and face language than theater, became revolutionary. In fact, Asta has created a new, film-acting style of acting. It was from the "Abyss" that the cinema began to be treated as art, and not crude entertainment. The film was a success all over the world. Aste Nielsen was immediately offered a contract with fabulous royalties in Germany. Asta agrees and moves to Berlin, where he actually creates a German film school. The one that will then give the world Marlene Dietrich. From now on, every film with Nielsen becomes a box office hit.

The last years of the outgoing era

In 1912 Asta's mother fell seriously ill. The actress returns to Copenhagen and takes turns with her sister on duty at her mother's bed. Ida has pneumonia, he is treated with hot compresses, and this gives complications to the heart. Asta's heart breaks when she looks at her mother's weary hands, lying so powerless. These hands worked tirelessly so that Asta had what to eat, what to wear, so that she had time and energy to study. And my mother told her daughter how proud she was of her. Then she asked:

- When I appear before the Lord, and he asks me what good deeds I have done in my life, what will I answer then?

- Just show your hands, mom …

Ida Nielsen did not survive either illness or treatment. Her death was a huge grief for her daughters.

After mourning for his mother, Asta marries Gad. They have a wonderful creative tandem. It is with him that she, for example, removes the acutely topical drama "Suffragette" about the Englishwomen, who, desperate for peaceful methods, turned to terror.

One of the features of Asta as an actress was a complete denial of superstition. For example, she “died” a lot and with pleasure in the frame - and lived a very long and happy life.

Having realized his dream of dramatic roles, Asta also does not refuse comedies. The most famous of them, "Angel", is still very funny to watch. But at first they tried to keep her out of the screens: in one episode a garter on her leg flashes for a second, and the main character in the finale turns out to be illegitimate. Amazing immorality!

Very often, Aste played "exotic" roles. So, she happened to play a Spanish woman. Filming took place in Spain, the extras were all local, and Nielsen had a dance scene for the role. The actress was very worried if her attempt to perform flamenco would seem too ridiculous to the locals. But the Spaniards, as she later told with humor, seemed to have decided that she was performing something Scandinavian folk, and took Asta's dance calmly.

In another film, Asta played a gypsy girl who is hired to steal some military documents. In the third - a Mexican. In general, Nielsen's appearance was beaten as best they could.

She told Hitler "No!"

During the First World War, Asta, feeling like a stranger in Berlin embraced by patriotism, returned to Denmark and only after the declaration of peace did she return. In Germany, the actress plays only tragic roles in a row, including "Hamlet" - because of the latter, they immediately begin to compare her with Sarah Bernhardt. However, Asta did not play a man! Her Hamlet is a princess who is passed off as a prince in order to preserve the power of the dynasty.

In 1923, she went to Alexei Tolstoy and saw an unfamiliar Russian there. Sitting on the arm of a chair, he played an expensive gypsy guitar inlaid with mother-of-pearl and sang a romance in a velvet voice. Asta had already divorced Gad even with her second husband, the Swede Ferdinand Windgordh, her heart was free, and she allowed herself to be completely fascinated by this Russian. His name was Grigory Khmara, and he was also an actor (and also, of course, an impoverished immigrant). For the next seven years they played together in many films, including Nastasya Filippovna based on Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

Unfortunately, passionate and kind at first, Gregory over time became more and more jealous of the fame of his common-law wife, and the quarrel between them became more and more fierce. In 1930, the couple broke up.

In 1925, Nielsen starred in the same film ("Sadness Lane") with another Scandinavian star, Greta Garbo, and she was shocked by the talent of the Danish woman: "I am nothing compared to her."

As with many silent film actors, Asta's talent did not stand the test of sound films. In 1932, she starred in the film "Crown of Thorns", looked at the result and tied up in the movies. She had the right - she is already 51 years old, after having worked so much, you can relax!

However, they still tried to bring her back to the big screen. After the Nazis came to power, Joseph Goebbels offered Nielsen a film studio to shoot propaganda films. When the actress refused, Hitler personally invited her to tea and explained for a long time what benefit the new films of Nielsen would bring to the Aryan peoples. Asta, in a not very polite manner, said that she had to refuse. After talking with Hitler, she left for Copenhagen.

At home, Asta found herself a new profession: she wrote articles on art and politics, besides, she sat down to write an autobiography. The events in her life were enough for two volumes of memoirs.

Throughout the war, Nielsen transferred money to Germany to Allan Hagedorff to help the Jews. This money, in particular, was used to buy food to be handed over to the Theresienstadt prisoners, and Hagedorff gave part of the money to the philologist and, in the future, to the author of the book on the formation of Nazism, Viktor Klemperer.

Asta Nielsen's third life

After the war, Asta remembered her father's cozy little hobby. He loved to sew patchwork rugs and was an amazing color picker. Asta began to create patchwork collages, having found her third profession in her life. Some of the collages were made up of her stage costumes!

In the sixties, she met the Danish art collector Christian Teede, eleven years her junior, and later married him. The wedding made a splash in the world press.

Nielsen died in May 1972, having lived a very long and very happy life.

By the way, in one of the cartoons depicting the birth of cinema, Asta was drawn by Eve, and Adam - Charlie Chaplin, who left us 10 very wise lessons.

Text: Lilith Mazikina