Background
A Banat German, she was born Elisabeth Johann in the village of Deutschbentschek (near Temesvar), Austria-Hungary. Her father, a hussar officer named Stefan Johann, emigrated with his family to the United States in 1911.
A Banat German, she was born Elisabeth Johann in the village of Deutschbentschek (near Temesvar), Austria-Hungary. Her father, a hussar officer named Stefan Johann, emigrated with his family to the United States in 1911.
She debuted on Broadway in 1924 and made her first film appearance in Doctorate. West. Griffith"s 1931 film The Struggle. She also taught acting to people with learning disorders. Johann married three times.
She made her last film appearance in the 1986 horror film Raiders of the Living Dead.
She died in 1993 at age 89 in Nyack, New New York She was cremated and her ashes were scattered in a stream in upstate New New York