author
Olga Wohlbrück
1867–1933
Austrian-born and active in Germany, this lively early-20th-century talent moved between the stage, the page, and the new world of film. Best remembered today as one of Germany’s earliest women film directors, she also built a career as a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter.
1 Audiobook
Die Primadonna : Roman
by Olga Wohlbrück
About the author
Born on July 5, 1867, in Gainfarn near Vienna, Olga Wohlbrück spent part of her childhood in Russia and began writing at a very young age. She later worked as an actress and became known in German-speaking cultural life as a writer as well as a performer.
Her writing career included novels, plays, and screenplays, and she was active at a moment when theater, popular fiction, and cinema were closely connected. In 1913, she directed Ein Mädchen zu verschenken, and she is often described as the first woman known to have directed a film in Germany.
Wohlbrück died in Berlin on July 20, 1933. Her story is especially interesting because it shows how one woman helped shape several creative worlds at once, from literature and theater to the earliest years of film.