Elfie Fiegert

Elfie (Elfriede) Fiegert (born 1946) is an Afro-German film actor who became famous as a child actor for playing the lead role in the film Toxi (1952) filmed when she was five years old. This was followed in 1955 with the film The Dark Star which has erroneously been described as sequel.[1]:124–5 At the age of seventeen she had a small role in The House in Montevideo (1963).

Toxi

Elfie did not receive a credit for a role in Toxi.[2] She was described as playing herself. The publicity for the film suggested that the story of the film reflected Elfie's own origins, and she came to use the stage name Toxi.[1]

The name also Toxi became widely used as shorthand in the German media when referring to Afro-Germans and their social condition.[1]:130

Later career

Reflecting upon Elfie's career as an example of racial stereotyping, Heide Fehrenbach suggests that whilst as a child actor Elfie was typecast as a black child of the US occupation of Germany post 1945, the onset of puberty meant she then became exoticised and sexualised and geographically removed outside of Germany.[1]:127

Selected filmography

References
  1. Fehrenbach, Heide (2005). Race after Hitler black occupation children in postwar Germany and America (2. print., 1. pbk. print. ed.). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 0691119066.
  2. "More Than A Few Words About Post-War German Cinema, Race and 'Toxi' | IndieWire". www.indiewire.com. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
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