Career
Her parents were hoteliers in Lugano. In 1931, she became one of the first Swiss women to hold a private pilot"s licence. Her first job was as a secretary to a neurologist.
In 1943, she wrote the period piece, Wer wirft den ersten Stein? (Who will throw the first stone?) – an indictment against anti-Semitism in Switzerland.
However, it was considered too hot to touch by the Schauspielhaus Zürich, a view shared soon afterwards by the Basler Stadttheater. lieutenant was not until October 1944, with Hitler’s downfall looming, that the play was first performed (to rave reviews) by an ad hoc company at a private theatre in Basel.
With the war over, she immediately went to Germany, where she met the master of political innuendo, Werner Finck. He engaged her to appear at his theatre, ‘Die Mausefalle’, (The Mousetrap) in Stuttgart, but – ever the individualist – Attenhofer did not want to lose her independence.
Instead she wrote her ‘One-Woman-Show’, a compilation of the best of the Cornichon sketches.
Leaving her family behind, she toured Europe with it in the 1970s, performing in four languages.