Lilli Palmer

Palmer, who took her surname from an English actress she admired, was one of three daughters born to Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lissman (or Lissmann), an Austrian Jewish stage actress in Posen, Prussia, Germany (now Poznań, Poland).[1]

When Lilli was four her family moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg. She was a junior table tennis champion as a young girl.[2] She studied drama in Berlin but her recently negotiated two-year contract with the Frankfurt Playhouse was cancelled after Hitler came to power in 1933 and the family faced grave reminders due to their Jewish heritage. Her elder sister, Irene (1911–1996), became an actress known as Irene Prador, later Mrs Irene Tooth. The youngest sister, Hildegard Julie Peiser (later Mrs Ross; 1919–2008), did not, however, follow her sisters' career choices. Lilli and her sisters fled Berlin to Paris but their father died in 1934 (aged 57) in Berlin. Their mother, Rose, died in 1959 (aged 77) in England.

In France, she appeared in an operetta at the Moulin Rouge, and then to London, where she began her film career. While performing in cabarets, she attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by the Gaumont Film Company. She made her screen debut in Crime Unlimited (1935) and appeared in numerous British films for the next decade.[3]

She married actor Rex Harrison on 25 January 1943,[1] and followed him to Hollywood in 1945. She signed with Warner Brothers and appeared in several films, notably Cloak and Dagger (1946) and Body and Soul (1947).[4]

She periodically appeared in stage plays as well as hosting her own television series in 1951.[5]

Harrison and Palmer appeared together in the hit Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle in the early 1950s. They also appeared in the 1951 British melodrama The Long Dark Hall, and later starred in the film version of The Four Poster (1952), which was based on the award-winning Broadway play of the same name, written by Jan de Hartog. She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in 1953 for The Four Poster.[6]

Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1956; they had one son, Carey, born in 1944.[7]

Palmer returned to Germany in 1954, where she played roles in many films and television productions. She also continued to play both leading and supporting parts in the U.S. and abroad. In 1957, she won the Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Actress for her portrayal of Anna Anderson in The Story of Anastasia, called Is Anna Anderson Anastasia? in the UK. In 1958, she played the role of a teacher opposite Romy Schneider in Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform), the remake of the 1931 film of the same title.[8]

Palmer interviewing German chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1982

Palmer starred with Fred Astaire and Debbie Reynolds in The Pleasure of His Company in 1961.[9]

She starred opposite William Holden in The Counterfeit Traitor (1962), an espionage thriller based on fact, and opposite Robert Taylor in another true Second World War story, Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions (1963). On the small screen, in 1974 she starred as Manouche Roget in the six-part television drama series The Zoo Gang, about a group of former underground freedom fighters from the Second World War, with Brian Keith, Sir John Mills and Barry Morse.[10]

Palmer published a memoir, Change Lobsters and Dance, in 1975.[7] Reminiscences by Vivian Matalon and Noël Coward (Matalon directed Palmer in the premiere production of Coward's trilogy Suite in Three Keys in 1966) suggest that Palmer was not always the patient and reasonable person she represented herself as being in this autobiography. She wrote a full-length work of fiction presented as a novel rather than a memoir, The Red Raven, in 1978.[11]

Palmer's first marriage was to Rex Harrison in 1943. They divorced amicably in 1957, so that he could marry ailing actress Kay Kendall before her untimely death. Palmer was agreeable since she was already involved with her future husband, Carlos Thompson.

Lilli Palmer (with husband Rex Harrison), 1950

Palmer was married to Argentine actor Carlos Thompson from 1957 until her death in Los Angeles from abdominal cancer[12] in 1986 at the age of 71. She was survived by her husband, son, sisters, and her ex-husband.

Palmer is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. A portion of the ashes of her first husband, Rex Harrison, were scattered on her grave.[13]

• 1953: Volpi Cup for Best Actress for The Four Poster[14]
• 1956: Deutscher Filmpreis (Silver) for Best Actress in Teufel in Seide[15]
• 1957: Deutscher Filmpreis (Silver) for Best Actress in Anastasia, die letzte Zarentochter[15]
• 1959: Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination for But Not for Me[16]
• 1972: Goldene Kamera for Eine Frau bleibt eine Frau (ZDF TV)[17]
• Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7013 Hollywood Blvd.[18]
• 1974: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
• 1978: Deutscher Filmpreis (Gold) for Lifetime Achievement
• 1986: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film nomination for Peter the Great[16]

• McClintock, Walter (1951). Current biography yearbook: 1951. New York: H. W. Wilson.
• Palmer, Lilli. Change Lobsters and Dance: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 978-0-02-594610-1

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lilli Palmer.

• Lilli Palmer at IMDb
• Lilli Palmer at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lilli Palmer at Find a Grave
• Photographs and literature