Magda Sonja

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Věnceslava Johana Veselá was born on 23 May 1886 to Czech parents.{{cite book |access-date=7 January 2024 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cIKQDQAAQBAJ&q=magda+sonja+czech&pg=PT47 |title=Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech-American Biography |isbn=9781524620691 |last=Rechcigl |first=Miloslav Jr. |date=10 November 2016}} She was affectionately called "Slava" by her family.{{cite web |access-date=7 January 2024 |url=http://www.steffi-line.de/archiv_text/nost_film20b40/255_sonja_magda.htm |title=Magda Sonja |language=de}} She trained in music and dance, and took on the pseudonym Magda Slawa, which would eventually derive into Magda Sonja. In 1907, she was a choir singer at the Theater an der Wien, and appeared in classical and modern roles at the Vienna City Theater, where she met her husband, Friedrich Feher. She also worked as a diseuse in various Viennese cabarets.

Magda Sonja made her screen debut in The Waning Heart (1917).{{cite web |url=https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=nkr&datum=19170428&seite=10 |title=ANNO, Neue Kino-Rundschau, 1917-04-28, Seite 10}} That same year, she signed to Sascha-Film, the leading film company in Austria at the time. There, she appeared in films such as Um ein Weib (1917), in which she played as a vamp, The Other I (1918), and Don Juan's Last Adventure (1918), amongst others. In the 1920s, she began to advance into leading roles, and rose to prominence after starring in Queen Draga (1920) as the title role; she would later reprise her role as Draga in the 1927 film Draga Maschin.

Beginning in 1922, she exclusively starred in films directed by her husband, such as Ssanin (1924), which was an adaptation of the novel by Mikhail Artsybashev. At the peak of her career, she portrayed Mata Hari in Mata Hari: The Red Dancer (1927). She next acted as Mary, Queen of Scots in Mary Stuart, followed by The Mistress of the Governor (both 1927),{{cite web |url=https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/die-geliebte-auf-dem-konigsthron-draga-maschin_ea43d4a787a15006e03053d50b37753d |title=Die Geliebte auf dem Königsthron (Draga Maschin) |website=filmportal.de}} and Hotel of Secrets (1929).

In 1930, Sonja made her talkie debut in the Czechoslovakian drama Když struny lkají, which is considered to be the first Czechoslovakian film fully made with synchronized sound.{{cite web |url=https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/cs/film/395505/kdyz-struny-lkaji |title=Když struny lkají |website=Filmový přehled |publisher=NFA |access-date=29 February 2020}} The film also marked the screen debut of Sonja and Feher's son, Hans Feher. Unable to make the transition to sound, Sonja's career declined and she only appeared in three more films, her final screen appearance being in the British musical The Robber Symphony (1936).

Sonja, her son, and her husband, who was Jewish, evaded the Nazis by fleeing to Britain in 1933. The family permanently moved to the U.S. in July 1937, settling in Los Angeles, where Sonja died on 20 August 1974.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} She was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

• The Other I (1918)
• The Venus (1922)
• Confessions of a Monk (1922)
• Ssanin (1924)
• Mary Stuart (1927)
• Forbidden Love (1927)
• Mata Hari (1927)
• Die Geliebte des Gouverneurs (1927)
• The Red Dance (1928)
• Hotel of Secrets (1929)
• Když struny lkají (1930)
• Haunted People (1932)
• The Robber Symphony (1936)

• Brinson, Charmian & Dove, Richard Dove & Taylor, Jennifer. Immortal Austria?: Austrians in Exile in Britain. Rodopi, 2007. {{isbn|978-94-012-0403-3}}
• {{cite book |last=Kreimeier |first=Klaus |title=The Ufa story: a history of Germany's greatest film company, 1918-1945 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1999 |isbn=9780520220690}}

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• {{IMDb name|0814351}}

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Category:1886 births

Category:1974 deaths

Category:20th-century Austrian actresses

Category:Austrian expatriate actresses in the United States

Category:Austrian film actresses

Category:Austrian silent film actresses

Category:Austrian stage actresses

Category:People from Prague-West District