Christine Kaufman

Christine Kaufmann was born near the end of World War II in Lendorf, Austria, on January 11, 1945. Her father, an engineer, was a Lufwaffe officer during the war, and her mother was a makeup artist. Her acting career began very early, as a child, in German productions, and as a teenager she was in Boarding School Vice (1958), alongside her compatriot Romy Schneider . She was also required by Italian cinema at that stage, in titles such as the popular peplum The Last Days of Pompeii (1959), she shared the bill with the strongman Steve Reeves and our Fernando Rey . The French were no strangers to her charm either, and with Jean Becker she madeA certain la Rocca (1961), together with Jean-Paul Belmondo .

Her fragile and sweet appearance dazzled Hollywood, which selected her for Ciudad sin piciedad , a co-production with Germany where she was a young woman raped by American soldiers stationed in Berlin, Kirk Douglas had to play the military defense lawyer; her strong performance earned her a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer Actress. She then came the turn of Taras Bulba (1962), adaptation of the novel by Russian Nikolai Gogol , where she met Tony Curtis , whom she married when she was only 18 years old and had two daughters, her only offspring. Unfortunately, the marriage broke up, as happened on the other three occasions that Christine was married.

With a filmography and presence in television productions that exceeds one hundred titles, almost all shot in Germany, it is worth mentioning her intervention in Lili Marleen (1981) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , and Bagdad Café (1987) by Percy Adlon . He remained active almost to the end, albeit with minor jobs. Her last film, from 2014, was a US/German co-production based on Mark Twain , Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn , where she was Aunt Polly.