Rosalie Helga Lina Zech (7 July 1940 – 31 August 2011), known as Rosel Zech, was a German theater and film actress, especially with the "Autorenkino" ("Author's Cinema") movement, which began in the 1970s.
Rosel Zech was born in Berlin; her father was an inland waterway boatman and her mother a dressmaker; they were unmarried. She was raised in Hoya, Germany. Her performing led her, at the age of 20, to Lower Bavaria, where in 1962 her first theatrical engagement was in the South Bavarian City Theater (now the Lower Bavarian State Theatre) in Landshut.
This was followed by other roles at various other theaters, such as in 1964 at the Städtebundtheater in Biel and at the summer theater in Winterthur. Two years later she played at the Schauspielhaus Wuppertal. From 1970 to 1972, she appeared on stage at the Staatstheater Stuttgart then at the Schauspielhaus Bochum.
During the season 1978-1979 Rosel Zech was active in Hamburg at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus and then returned to her native city of Berlin, where she acted on the Volksbühne. In 1981 she was hired by the Bayerischen Staatsschauspiel in Munich. Four years later she was seen again at the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. 2009 she worked with in the Luisenburg Festival in the play Mother Courage as Anna Fierlinger.
She made her 1970 television debut in The Pot. In 1973 she appeared in a small role in The Tenderness of Wolves with Kurt Raab and Margit Carstensen. On the set she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who produced the film. She and Fassbinder began an extended collaboration. The same year, Peter Zadek cast the actress in his film version of Kleiner Mann – was nun? ("Little man - what now?" with Heinrich Giskes and Hannelore Hoger.