Sara Schätzl

Schätzl started to get roles as an extra and supporting act in films and TV series like SOKO 5113 and the telenovela Lotta in Love.[18] She made also commercials after she had already done her first at the age of ten.[19]

In 2007 photos appeared in the tabloid press showing the 19-year-old Schätzl as the alleged holiday flirt of actor Bernd Herzsprung during a joint stay in the hotel Liebes Rot Flüh in Haldensee, Tyrol in Austria. Later it came to light that the 65-year-old Herzsprung had arranged the 'paparazzi' pictures himself with the photographer and Schätzl after the separation from his wife Barbara Engel[2][20][21] and he denied having a relationship with the young actress.[3][22] Schätzl made also headlines for two court appearances in 2007 and 2008.[23][24]

Schätzl at the Emmy Awards 2013

Sara Schätzl became an it girl and part of the Munich high society. In 2009 she started to write the column Zur Sache Schätzl! about unusual stories from Munich in the German tabloid Bild.[25] Her first book Glamourgirl was published in November 2011 by Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf[26] and tells in thirty-three stories her way from a small town country girl into the limelight in a big city.[27][28]

A breakdown at the end of 2009 followed by bouts of depression forced Schätzl to take an eighteen-month break, during which she went to therapy, worked in her mother's travel agency in Sinzing and re-evaluated her life. During this time she also got tattoos on her arm and back[2] including the life mottos Lebe frei und träume laut [live free and dream aloud] and Don't judge me, an image of the hamsa and some writing in Sanskrit.[29]

In 2013 Schätzl moved with her son to Los Angeles to start her career as actress in Hollywood. After a report was aired on RTL program Punkt 12, her emigration in early 2013 and the process of establishing her career as an actress was followed by the TV station VOX in their series Auf und davon – Mein Auslandstagebuch[30] and also documented in Schätzl's own video diary.[31] A second episode of the RTL and VOX programmes following Schätzl's life in Los Angeles were filmed during autumn 2013 and was aired on VOX in January 2014.[32]

Sara Schätzl studies acting at the Marjorie Ballentine Studio in Los Angeles.[32] In her first movie role Schätzl appears as Greta in the short film Doradus,[33] written and directed by Fernando Scarpa, which was released 3 March 2014 and opened at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival on 25 June 2014.[34] The film's West Coast premiere was on the 12 July 2014 as an official selection of the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles[35] and the movie was also chosen for the Los Angeles Fear and Fantasy Film Festival 2014.[36] In October 2014 Doradus won the HollyShorts Monthly Screening series[37] audience vote.[38]

In February 2015 Sara Schätzl published her second book Hungriges Herz [Hungry Heart],[39] in which she describes her twelve-year-long fight against bulimia. Her illness began when she was fourteen years old suffering from low self-esteem. After she was hospitalized twice in 2014, once diagnosed with life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, she decided to start a therapy and join a support group in Los Angeles. In the last months of her therapy Schätzl used her diary notes, together with records from her mother and friends, to write a book about her life with the eating disorder and her battle to escape the addiction.[40][41] After Hungriges Herz became a bestseller in Germany Schätzl started in May 2015 a project on Kickstarter[42] to collect $35000 to produce a short documentary film, ADDICT, based on the book and show the film for free in schools to discuss the problem of eating disorders with young people.[43][44] The project ended on 21 May 2015 unsuccessfully.

In October 2015 Schätzl was featured as successful business woman in the Erfolgsmenschen series of the German news magazine Stern. She started together with a friend an expanding club promotion business and is the only female promoter in Los Angeles.[45]

At the beginning of 2016 Schätzl moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Her move was followed by a German TV production.[46]

In the summer of 2016 she started a cooperation, called Bottles of kindness, with the Croatian company Eva Maria Cosmetics to promote awareness of autism.[47]

At the end of 2016, Schätzl changed career and opened a small bed and breakfast in four luxury trailers parked in the backyard of her Las Vegas house to have more time to look after her son, who was diagnosed with autism. A documentary about the renovation of her house, which she did herself with the help of members of a rehabilitation program, as well as the set-up and opening of the trailer hotel was aired on German TV in January 2017.[48][49]