Dittus, Barbara

Biography:

The actress Barbara Dittus was known for her talent at playing confident, sensible women. She was born in Guben (now Poland) on July 11, 1939. As a schoolgirl she could be heard on children’s radio. From 1956 to 1961 Dittus studied acting at the Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg. She was a member of the company at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin (1962-67) and the Berlin Ensemble (1968-93).

 

Dittus’ first film role was in Slatan Dudow’s Verwirrung der Liebe. Her cinematic breakthrough came with the antifascist film Die Toten bleiben jung, based on the Anna Seghers novel, in which Dittus played the 27-year span of a proletarian woman’s life. Dittus was adept at playing wide variety of characters in film and television, such as historical figures in Clara Zetkin, contemporary emancipated women as in Egon Günther’s Der Dritte and comedic roles like Sabine the barmaid in Günther Reisch’s Anton der Zauberer.

 

Dittus was a prolific actress not only in film but in television as well, particularly from the mid-1980s to 1999. Her daughter Susanne Lüning (born 1966) is also an actress.

 

Barbara Dittus died in Berlin on June 25, 2001.

 

Festivals & Awards:

1980 Best Supporting Actor, GDR National Feature Film Festival, Karl-Marx-Stadt for P.S.

 

Filmography:

1996 Engelchen (Little Angel)
1995 Das Versprechen (The Promise)
1991 Miraculi
1987 Die Alleinseglerin (The Solo Sailor)
1986 Stielke, Heinz, fünfzehn... (Stielke, Heinz, Fifteen)
1986 Wie die Alten sungen (Like Father, Like Son)
1986 Das Schulgespenst (The School Ghost)
1985 Atkins
1983 Ärztinnen (Women Doctors)
1983 Automärchen (Motoring Tales)
1981 Märkische Forschungen (Exploring the Mark Brandenburg)
1981 Bürgshaft für ein Jahr (On Probation)
1981 Brot und ABC (Bread and ABC, narrator)
1980 Unser kurzes Leben (Our Short Life)
1979 Einfach Blumen aufs Dach (Just Put Flowers on the Roof)
1978 P.S.
1978

Bis daß der Tod euch scheidet (Until Death Do Us Part)

1978 Sieben Sommersprossen (Seven Freckles)
1977 Anton der Zauberer (Anton the Magician)
1976 Tambari
1976 Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
1975 Clara Zetkin (TV)
1971 Der Dritte (Her Third)
1970 Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty)
1968 Die Toten bleiben jung (The Dead Stay Young)
1968 Mohr und die Raben von London (Moor and the Ravens of London)
1962 Die schwarze Galeere (The Black Galley)
1960 Fünf Tage – Fünf Nächte (Five Days, Five Nights)
1959 Verwirrung der Liebe (Love’s Confusion)

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