Born into a well-known family of Austrian actors, she was the daughter of actor and director Rudolf Retty. Trained by her father, she began her stage career in 1890 at the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater in Berlin, where she successfully performed in the title role of Minna von Barnhelm.
She is mainly remembered today as actress Romy Schneider"s paternal grandmother. In 1895 she went to the Volkstheater in Vienna and in 1903 joined the Burgtheater ensemble. Albach-Retty was married to the Austro-Hungarian Army officer Karl Albach.
She was the mother of Wolf Albach-Retty (1906–1967), an Austrian movie actor who married German movie actress Magda Schneider in 1937.
Albach-Retty made her first film appearance in 1930, in Georg Jacoby"s Gold on the Street, and made her last appearance in the 1955 remake The Congress Dances directed by Franz Antel. She died in 1980 at the age of 105.
1955: Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria.
