Trude Hesterberg

about

Gertrud Johanna Dorothea Helene Hesterberg was born on May 2nd 1892, in Berlin. She was first taught to sing by her opera-singer aunt and began her formal classical training in August 1911 at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. She made her stage debut in a production by Moliere in 1912 and, also in that year, her first silent film ‘Im Goldenen Käfig’. Over the next few years she made many appearances on theatre and cabaret stages in Berlin, including The Wintergarten and Schall und Rauch performing works by Kurt Tucholsky, Friedrich Hollaender and Erich Kästner. Her film career continued flourishing to the extent that in September 1921 she opened her own cabaret ‘Wilde Bühne’ (the Wild Stage) in the basement of the Theater De Westens. It was the first truly political-literary cabaret, and discovered some of the very best artists of the time, including Wilhelm Bendow, Walter Mehring and, for six nights only in January 1922, a young Bertolt Brecht. By May 1922, Hesterberg was forced to take a break from the venue due to exhaustion and by 1923 the extraordinary hyper-inflation of the period had forced it to close. Seven more silent movie appearances followed between 1925 and 1928, and Hesterberg was also now a regular feature at the Kadeko and in Erik Charrel revues at The Großenschaulspielhaus. It is thought that she was an early consideration for the lead role in The Blue Angel, before it was given to Marlene Dietrich. (image: Ullstein. Becker und Maass) The sudden and

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