Maria Orska was born in Nicolayev Ukraine (when it was part of the Russian Empire), on March 16, 1893 as Rachel Blinderman Frankfurter, and died in Wien, Austria on May 16, 1930 at her 37 years.
Around 1911 she moved to Wien with her mother Augustine Frankfurter and her younger sister Gabryela, while her father Abraham Moiseiwitsch and second brother Edwin Adamowitsch, stayed in Ukraine.
She spoke fluently Russian, German, French and Polish.
In Berlin she worked with theater directors as Max Reinhardt, Barnowsky, Carl Meinhard and Rudolph Bernauer, among others, representing plays from the famous Wedekind, Strindberg and Pirandello. Debuted in the Berliner Theater, the Theater in der Königgrätzer Straße, Hebbel and Lessing Theater.
She gained also popularity in Germany for her films, although theater was always more important to her. Her first movie Dämon und Mensch (1915) was produced by Jules Greenbaum, one of the pioniers of the German cinema, who discovered cinema during his 20 years long stay in Chicago and migrated back to Germany in 1895. Most of her movies were produced by Alfred Maack, director and producer employed by Greenbaum. She was sometimes credited in films and film publicity materials as Maria Daisy Orska.
Some important painters drew her as Oskar Kokoschka in 1922, now kept as a lithograph in collections of several museums as Moma in New York. Also R.L.Leonard in 1924 and Emil Stumpp in 1927.
Maria married an important Jewish banker from Berlin, much older than she was, Baron Hans von Bleichröder (son of Gerson von Bleichröder) and took a name of Baroness von Bleichröder. They were divorced in 1925.
Maria Orska's sister Gabryela Marchesa di Serra Maninchedda, married to an Italian aristocrat, had committed suicide in 1926, by hanging herself on a curtain rope in a Berlin hotel. His brother Edwin married to the Ecuadorian Elsa Lasso in 1938 and died in Quito in 1966.
Maria Orska had an enormous popularity in Central Europe of the 1920s. Her stage performances at The Hebbel-Theater in the Kreuzberg district were seen as extraordinary by the Berlin audience of that era. Her photographs appeared on covers of magazines, postcards with her portraits were distributed all over that part of the continent.
Maria Orska committed suicide in 1930, in her apartment in Wien. Addiction to morphine had a decisive influence on this decision.
Filmography
Around 1911 she moved to Wien with her mother Augustine Frankfurter and her younger sister Gabryela, while her father Abraham Moiseiwitsch and second brother Edwin Adamowitsch, stayed in Ukraine.
She spoke fluently Russian, German, French and Polish.
In Berlin she worked with theater directors as Max Reinhardt, Barnowsky, Carl Meinhard and Rudolph Bernauer, among others, representing plays from the famous Wedekind, Strindberg and Pirandello. Debuted in the Berliner Theater, the Theater in der Königgrätzer Straße, Hebbel and Lessing Theater.
She gained also popularity in Germany for her films, although theater was always more important to her. Her first movie Dämon und Mensch (1915) was produced by Jules Greenbaum, one of the pioniers of the German cinema, who discovered cinema during his 20 years long stay in Chicago and migrated back to Germany in 1895. Most of her movies were produced by Alfred Maack, director and producer employed by Greenbaum. She was sometimes credited in films and film publicity materials as Maria Daisy Orska.
Some important painters drew her as Oskar Kokoschka in 1922, now kept as a lithograph in collections of several museums as Moma in New York. Also R.L.Leonard in 1924 and Emil Stumpp in 1927.
Maria married an important Jewish banker from Berlin, much older than she was, Baron Hans von Bleichröder (son of Gerson von Bleichröder) and took a name of Baroness von Bleichröder. They were divorced in 1925.
Maria Orska's sister Gabryela Marchesa di Serra Maninchedda, married to an Italian aristocrat, had committed suicide in 1926, by hanging herself on a curtain rope in a Berlin hotel. His brother Edwin married to the Ecuadorian Elsa Lasso in 1938 and died in Quito in 1966.
Maria Orska had an enormous popularity in Central Europe of the 1920s. Her stage performances at The Hebbel-Theater in the Kreuzberg district were seen as extraordinary by the Berlin audience of that era. Her photographs appeared on covers of magazines, postcards with her portraits were distributed all over that part of the continent.
Maria Orska committed suicide in 1930, in her apartment in Wien. Addiction to morphine had a decisive influence on this decision.
Filmography
- 1915 Dämon und Mensch
- 1915/1916 Das tanzende Herz
- 1916 Die Sektwette
- 1916 Der lebende Tote
- 1916 Der Sumpf
- 1916 Das Geständnis der grünen Maske
- 1916 Adamants letztes Rennen
- 1917 Die schwarze Loo
- 1920 Die letzte Stunde. Der Tag eines Gerichtes in 5 Verhandlungen
- 1920/1921 Die Bestie im Menschen
- 1920/1921 Der Streik der Diebe
- 1922 Opfer der Leidenschaft
- 1922/1923 Fridericus Rex. 3. Sanssouci