Hermine Sterler

Hermine Sterler was a German-American actress who worked in silent and sound films on two continents. Born Minna Stern in Bad Cannstatt in 1894, she debuted on stage in 1918 in Hannover and later acted in Berlin, including at the Kleinen Theater. She often took saloon lady parts, and from 1921 appeared regularly in German silent films, flourishing as a character actress in roles as young wives and mothers. In 1930 she took the part of the Tsarina in Rasputin, Demon with Women. She moved to Vienna in 1933, where she kept acting on stage and screen, and then to London, before emigrating to the United States in 1938. Wilhelm Dieterle gave her her first American part, and she spent the war years and after in small Hollywood roles as German or other European women, among them the wife of Ernst Hanfstaengl in the 1944 film The Hitler Gang. She also taught acting privately to the young Piper Laurie.