Olga Engl

Biography

Engl was privately educated in a single-sex monastery and began her acting career at the Prague Conservatory. In August 1887 she made her stage début as Bertha in the play Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua in her home town. In 1888, she moved to the city of Danzig and performed in the theatre from 1889 to 1892 then briefly moved to Berlin. From 1892 to 1895 she performed with the court theatre in Munich and from 1895 to 1897 in Hamburg at the Thalia Theater, and from 1897 in Hanover.

Engl made her film debut in the 1911 British silent film The Adoptive Child then returned to Germany and began appearing in German film productions. Her first major role was in the 1913 Carl Froelich-directed biopic Richard Wagner. She would work continually throughout the 1910s and appear in a variety of roles for such directors as Urban Gad and Frederic Zelnik and opposite such popular actors of the era as Emil Jannings, Alfred Abel and Lya Mara. By the early 1920s, Engl's career in motion pictures was well established. In 1922 she appeared in the popular F.W. Murnau-directed eerie drama Phantom opposite Alfred Abel, Grete Berger, Aud Egede-Nissen, Lya De Putti and Lil Dagover.

Engl transitioned to the talkie era with relative ease and she often appeared in films as a "Grand Dame" type of character. Some of her most enduring roles of the early talkie era were the 1931 Gerhard Lamprecht-directed adventure Emil und die Detektive and the musical Der Kongreß tanzt (English: The Congress Dances), also released in 1931 and starring Lilian Harvey, Conrad Veidt and Lil Dagover. In 1933 she made her English language film debut in the Edwin H. Knopf and Luis Trenker-directed The Rebel. The film starred Hungarian actors Vilma Bánky and Victor Varconi and was a remake of Der Rebell, also featuring Engl and released earlier the same year and also directed by Trenker.

Engl continued to act through the World War II era – appearing in ten films between 1939 and 1945. Her last film appearance before retiring was a small role in the drama Das Alte Lied, which was released in March 1945. In addition to film roles, she continued acting on Berlin stages until shortly before her death in 1946.