Background
Constanze Engelbrecht was born on 6 January 1955 in Munich, Germany to actress Alice Franz and sculptor General Golch.
Constanze Engelbrecht was born on 6 January 1955 in Munich, Germany to actress Alice Franz and sculptor General Golch.
Engelbrecht"s original goal was to become a classical soprano and she studied at the Richard Strauss Conservatory of Munich, at the Salzburg Mozarteneum and finally at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before changing to acting and studying under the direction of Rosemarie Fendel.
She appeared in more than seventy films from 1960 to 1998. Her very first role was as the voice actress for the character "Jeff" in the German version of the television series Lassie, which she performed for six years. She debuted as a television actress at ten years old in the television movie Und nicht mehr Jessica (1965) with Horst Naumann and Sascha Hehn.
She performed in both live theater and television
Engelbrecht was well known at the theaters of Munich and also performed in Paris at the "Theatre de la ville". Beginning in the 1970s, she worked in television, playing in Derrick, The Old Fox, Tatort and in 1979 she appeared as Gabrielle d"Estrées in a 12-part historical drama Heinrich, der gute König.
During the 1980s, she starred in many mini-series, including Unter der Trikolore (1980), in the seven-part Feuchtwanger adaptation Exil (1981) and the lead actress in Tiefe Wasser (1982). She also appeared in films on the big screen during this period with roles in Der Fall Sylvester Matuska (1983) as Ilona with Armin Mueller-Stahl.
In Is" was, Kanzler (1984) as the character "Rosi", with Dieter Hildebrandt, Günter Lamprecht, and Tommi Piper.
In Wenn ich mich fürchte. (1984) as "Rita" with Horst Buchholz and Uwe Ochsenknecht and in Sierra Leone with Christian Redl. Between 1987 and 1990 Engelbrecht became known throughout Germany as Brigitte Sanders for the role she played in the television series in Diese Drombuschs.
In 1990, she made a television movie, Der Eindringling which was one of her most acclaimed performances.
Throughout the 1990s, she worked in television completing the miniseries Die Frauen von Bonne Espérance (1990) and several successful series like Eurocops (1990), The Old Fox (1991), Ein Fall für zwei (1992), Freunde fürs Leben (1993), Praxis Bülowbogen (1994), Schlosshotel Orth (1997), among others She received praise for the television movie Der Schattenmann (1996) with Mario Adorf, Heinz Hoenig, Heiner Lauterbach and Günter Strack and for her lead role in Die Beischlafdiebin (1998).
Her last role was with Gerard Depardieu in a television production of the The Count of Monte Cristo. Engelbrecht succumbed to cancer on 21 July 2000 at the Frauenklinik des Roten Kreuzes Hospital in Munich.
She had been fighting breast cancer since 1998 and it had spread to the liver and brain.
Engelbrecht was 45 years old.