Gusti Huber
| Gusti Huber | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Auguste Huber July 27, 1914 Wiener Neustadt, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | July 12, 1993 (aged 78) Mount Kisco, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Spouse(s) | Gotfrid Köchert (divorced); Two children Joseph Besch; two children |
| Children | Four |
Auguste "Gusti" Huber (July 27, 1914 – July 12, 1993) was an Austrian theater and film actress.
Huber was born in Wiener Neustadt, Austria in 1914. She received training as an actress from Rudolph Beer who later arranged her stage debut in Zurich. She had her first film role in 1935 in Tanzmusik, followed by Savoy-Hotel 217 (1936). One year later she achieved her career breakthrough in the film adaptation of Unentschuldigte Stunde. Among her better-known films were Der Mann, von dem man spricht (1937), Land der Liebe (1937), Kleiner Mann - ganz gross! (1938), Marguerite (1939), and Jenny und der Herr im Frack (1941), after which she worked for four years at the Viennese Burgtheater and elsewhere onstage.
Around 1946, she and her second husband, Joseph Besch, an officer in the US Army, moved to the United States. Besch boasted that his wife was "the first Austrian actress to be cleared by the American military government". She acted only occasionally thereafter, most notably appearing on Broadway three times (Flight into Egypt, Dial M for Murder as Margot Wendice, and The Diary of Anne Frank).
Her last film role was Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank; 1959), in which she reprised the role of Anne Frank's mother, Edith, which caused controversy in some circles as Huber was rumoured to have been too close to the National Socialists, but Garson Kanin reportedly stood by the casting.
American Heritage wrote of Huber's attempts to distance herself from her wartime past:
In Vienna before the war she [Huber] had refused to work with a Jewish actor and director, and in Germany during the war she had continued to make movies under the Third Reich. ... At the very same time Anne was murdered in Bergen-Belsen, Gusti was busy shooting a screen comedy. ... But Huber was a Broadway star and [the charges against her] never ... gained traction.
...
Wikipedia