Background
Lil Dagover was born on 30 September 1897 at Madiven, Java,her father was a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch authorities.
Lil Dagover was born on 30 September 1897 at Madiven, Java,her father was a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch authorities.
At the age of ten she was sent to Baden-Baden to study, she later entered the cinema thanks to her marriage in 1917 to the actor Fritz Dagover who was twenty-five years her senior. Discovered by the director Robert Wiene (a colleague of her husband's), she appeared in his classic expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and in a number of other prestigious German productions during the early 1920s, she worked with such famous directors as Carl Froelich, Fritz Lang, Murnau.
Apart from three trips - one to Sweden in 1927, another to France in 1928-9 and one to Hollywood in 1931 - most of Lil Dagover's career and fate was linked to that of the German cinema, where her role was usually that of the frail heroine with the 'haunted' look. She continued to star in a great number of films during the Nazi era, to which she brought a talent and presence they did not always deserve.
She also acted in the Deutsches Theatre Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, at forces shows and at war theatres. At one time she was reported to have been a close friend of Hitler.
Lil Dagover continued her career in post-war Germany, playing both leading and supporting parts until the late 1970s.
She died in January 1980 in München-Geiselgasteig at the age of eighty-two.
Der Höhere Befehl
(Directed by Gerhard Lamprecht.)
1935Kabale und Liebe
(Directed by Carl Froelich.)
1920Der Müde Tod
(Directed by Fritz Lang)
1921Die Kreutzersonate
(by Veit Harlan.)
1936Tartuffe
1925Der Kongress Tanzt
1931Königliche Hoheit, Die Barring
1955Buddenbrooks
1959Der Fussgänger
1974Der Richter und sein Henker
1975Die Standarte
1977