Uschi Obermaier

Background

Uschi Obermaier was born in Sendling, a suburb of Munich, Germany.

Education

Obermaier started an apprenticeship as a photo-restorer but gave it up to become a model.

Career

She started an apprenticeship as a photo-restorer but gave it up to become a model. She was discovered by the magazine Twen. After a successful photo-shoot with photographer Guido Mangold in the Cameroon, she became its top model and internationally famous. She went on to work for other magazines and top photographers such as Helmut Newton. She was briefly a member of the Munich-based experimental commune/band Amon Düül around 1968/69. Obermaier played alongside Iris Berben in Rudolf Thome's Detektive (1968). She was the protagonist of Rote Sonne (1969). She also played a small role alongside Rainer Langhans in Haytabo, and portrayed Marlene in the film adaptation of the novel Blutrausch. Obermaier's photo is featured on the cover of the 12-inch single "These Days" by Xu Xu Fang. She played maracas in the band Amon Düül, aka Amon Düül I, on two albums: Collapsing (1970, released by Metronome) and Disaster (1972, released by BASF). Today, she lives in Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles, and works as a jewellery designer.

Achievements

• Uschi Obermaier became the first Germany top model.

Works

• book

  • High Times

Politics

Uschi Obermaier was part of the "Commune 1", first formed for political purposes in Germany. It was created in response to moral and sexual roles conservatives of those years. While Obermaier did not participate actively in politics, she became part inadvertently in the revolutionary movement as an inspiring femininity unrelated to the classical roles of wife and mother.

Connections

ex-boyfriend:

Rainer Langhans

Uschi and Rainer freely talked to the media about their relationship, jealousy and love freedom and were symbols of the sexual revolution. They became the German version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

ex-boyfriend:

Jimi Hendrix

ex-boyfriend:

Mick Jagger

ex-boyfriend:

Keith Richards

Their affair went so far that Keith and Uschi ended up falling really in love and he is said to even have considered leaving his common-law wife Anita Pallenberg for Obermaier.

Ex-husband:

Dieter Bockhorn

Dieter was the most important man in her life. For six years Uschi and Dieter toured Asia, U.S. and Mexico. In 1984, Bockhorn died in Mexico in a motorcycle accident.