Katharina Thalbach

Life and work:

Born in East Berlin, Katharina Thalbach's father Benno Besson was a director, her mother Sabine Thalbach, was an actress. Her half-brother Pierre Besson and her stepmother Ursula Karusseit are actors as well.

At the age of four, Thalbach was playing children's roles on stage, on television, and in films. After the death of her mother in 1966, Helene Weigel took her under her care. In 1967, she made her debut as the whore Betty (later the Polly) in Erich Engel's production of Brecht's Dreigroschenoper. She completed her Abitur at the Max-Planck-Oberschule. She obtained her stage maturity examination (Bühnenreifeprüfung) as a master student of Helene Weigel, Berliner Ensemble. Thalbach played at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, where her father worked as artistic director.

In 1976, Thalbach moved with her partner Thomas Brasch to West Germany, because he was protesting against Wolf Biermann's expatriation. In West Berlin, she made her debut at the Schillertheater. She acted as a guest star in Hans Lietzau's production of Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz and in Jürgen Flimm's production of Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, for which she was voted actress of the year by Theater heute in 1980. She had success with the role of Maria in Volker Schlöndorff's 1979 film adaptation of Grass' sThe Tin Drum. In 1984, she performed the Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet in Zürich.

Since 1987, she worked as a director. Her break through was the award-winning production Macbeth. Since 1997, she was opera director, with productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Janáček's The cunning little Vixen in Berlin.

Thalbach's partner Thomas Brasch was an author. Her daughter Anna (born 1973) from a former relationship with Vladimir Weigl and her granddaughter Nellie (born 1995) are actresses. She is married to Uwe Hamacher. She lives in Berlin.