Login
Login

Dolly Haas

{{Short description|German actress (1910–1994)}}

{{Use British English|date=July 2020}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Dolly Haas

| image = Dolly Haas - 1955.jpg

| imagesize =

| alt =

| caption = Haas in 1955

| birth_name = Dorothy Clara Louise Haas

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|4|29}}

| birth_place = Hamburg, Germany

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1994|9|16|1910|4|29}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| occupation = Actress, singer

| years_active = 1927–1981

| spouse = John Brahm (m. 1937; div. 1941)
Al Hirschfeld
(m. 1943)

}}

Dorothy Clara Louise Haas (29 April 1910{{Citation needed |date=June 2023}} – 16 September 1994) was a German-American actress and singer who played in German and American films. After moving to the United States, she often appeared in Broadway plays. She became a naturalized US citizen and married Al Hirschfeld, a noted portraitist and caricaturist in New York City.

Life and work

File:Gielgud and Haas in Crime and Punishment.jpg

{{more citations needed|section|date=July 2017}}

Haas was born in Hamburg, Germany, to Charles Oswald Haas, a bookseller of British-German origin,{{Cite web|url=http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/dt2tp0141.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091020111606/http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/dt2tp0141.htm|url-status=dead|title=German movie institute profile|archivedate=October 20, 2009}} and Margarete Maria (née Hansen). She was already an accomplished actress in German cinema before moving to the United States.{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/dolly-haas-p29437|title=Dolly Haas | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos|website=AllMovie}}

Her father Charles was half-German, but had grown up in England, and had British citizenship. Dolly and her sister, Margarete, attended Jacob Loewenberg's girls' school Lyzeum in Hamburg, the Anerkannte höhere Mädchenschule.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}{{Cite web|url=http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1525628|title=Guide to the Papers of the Dolly Haas Family1883-2011AR 25447|website=digifindingaids.cjh.org}} The Haas family's personal records, including diaries and letters, are currently held by the Center for Jewish History in New York City, New York.{{Cite web |access-date=August 5, 2024 |title=Dolly Haas Family Collection |url=https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/14154 |website=Center for Jewish History}}

Marriage and family

Haas married German-born film director John Brahm. At one time, he was resident director for acting troupes such as Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, both in Berlin. They divorced in 1941.{{Citation needed |date=June 2023}}

After moving to the US, Haas became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She married again in 1943, to Al Hirschfeld in Baltimore, Maryland. They lived in New York, where he worked for The New York Times as a portraitist and caricaturist. His work was also published in The New York Review of Books. They had a daughter, Nina, born in 1945.

Career

Dolly Haas had her debut as a professional actress in 1927 in Berlin. She worked at the city's Großes Schauspielhaus theatre, before embarking on a film career. The latter took her to England and to Hollywood, United States.{{Citation needed |date=June 2023}}

Haas enjoyed a brief but successful stage career in the United States as well. She made her New York stage debut in 1941 in Erwin Piscator's production of The Circle of Chalk.{{cite news|last=Gussow|first=Mel|date=17 September 1994|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/17/obituaries/dolly-haas-84-an-actress-and-the-wife-of-hirschfeld.html|newspaper=The New York Times|title=Dolly Haas, 84, an Actress And the Wife of Hirschfeld|access-date=19 February 2016}} She also performed with John Gielgud and Lillian Gish in the 1947 revival of Crime and Punishment.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/crime-and-punishment-1624|title=Crime and Punishment – Broadway Play – 1947 Revival | IBDB|website=www.ibdb.com}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/dolly-haas-78009|title=Dolly Haas – Broadway Cast & Staff | IBDB|website=www.ibdb.com}}

In 1946 Haas followed Mary Martin in the lead role in Lute Song for the touring production. Her co-star, Yul Brynner, said that Haas's casting substantially improved the show. He said, "Dolly Haas understood the part. She had an affinity for it, and the play immediately improved. It wasn't at all that Dolly was a better actress. She was just better casting for the part than Mary."

Mary Martin agreed with Brynner's assessment, and helped Haas to prepare for the role in the short time allotted for rehearsal.Davis, Ronald L. Mary Martin, Broadway Legend. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, pp. 100-101. Haas also performed in Off Broadway productions of The Threepenny Opera and Brecht on Brecht.

Although Haas did not appear in many English language films, she had an important role in Alfred Hitchcock's 1953 film, I Confess.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f4e4b14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724112603/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f4e4b14|url-status=dead|archive-date=24 July 2019|title=Dolly Haas|website=BFI}} Haas was a personal friend of Hitchcock, and he cast her as Alma Keller, the wife of the murderer—janitor Otto Keller. This high-profile film also starred Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden and Brian Aherne.{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/movie/i-confess-v24029/cast-crew|title=I Confess (1953) - Alfred Hitchcock | Cast and Crew|website=AllMovie}}{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}

Death

Haas died 16 September 1994 from ovarian cancer in New York City, aged 84.

Filmography

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

{{div col end}}

References

{{Reflist|2}}

External links

  • {{IMDb name|0351930}}
  • {{IBDB name|78009}}
  • {{iobdb name|24466}}
  • {{LBI Collection Links|pid=1525628|title=Dolly Haas Family Collection|partner=Leo Baeck Institute, New York |callNumber=AR 25447 | type=Archival Collection}}
  • [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=621 Photographs and literature]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haas, Dolly}}

Category:1910 births

Category:1994 deaths

Category:American film actresses

Category:American musical theatre actresses

Category:American television actresses

Category:Deaths from ovarian cancer in New York (state)

Category:German women singers

Category:German musical theatre actresses

Category:German film actresses

Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States

Category:Actresses from Hamburg

Category:Musicians from Hamburg

Category:20th-century German actresses

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:20th-century American singers

Category:20th-century German musicians

Category:20th-century American women singers

Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States