Lotte Lenya

Lotte Lenya (October 18, 1898 – November 27, 1981), singer and actress, born Karoline Wilhelmine Blamauer, in Vienna, Austria. She is best known for her performance as Jenny in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, and some other Brecht-Weill plays.

She moved to study in Zürich, Switzerland in 1914, taking up her first job at the Schauspielhaus using the stage name Lotte Lenja. She moved to Berlin to seek work in 1921. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, she left the country. In March 1933, she fled to Paris, France where she sang the leading part in Brecht-Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins. During World War II, Lenya did a number of stage performances, recordings and radio performances, including for the Voice of America. After a badly received part in her husband’s musical The Firebrand of Florence in 1945 in New York, she withdrew from the stage. After her husband, Weill’s death she was coaxed back to the stage.

Her role as Vivien Leigh’s earthy friend Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales in the screen version of Tennessee Williams’ The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961) brought Lenya an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Her role as the villainous Rosa Klebb in the James Bond film From Russia with Love brought her additional fame.