Hildegard Knef

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 Black Velvet wrote:

I had never heard of her before. But as you said
she has quite a distinctive voice, I'm trying to think of the word that
would encompass her delivery. A lot of the time it seems quite an
aggressive delivery. What sort of acting did she do?   

She was the first woman who appeared naked in a German movie, if only
for a few seconds. It was quite a scandal in the prude Germany of the
fifties, also because of the content of the movie (a prostitute taking
good care of her child; this positive depiction of a prostitute was
unthinkable, and the church literally howled). The name of that movie
was "Die Sünderin" ("The Sinner").
She had an attempt at Hollywood, but the best she ever got was a role in "Snows of the Kilimanjaro", in which the real stars were Gregory Peck, Susan Heyward and Ava Gardner. She mentions that attempt in her song "Von nun an ging's bergab" ("After that it was downhill").
She was also a successful author; her book "Der geschenkte Gaul" ("The Gift Horse") was a huge success.