Leni Stengel

Leni Stengel was a German-born singer and actress who worked in film, on television, and on the stage between the 1920s and the 1950s. Her stage debut came in 1920, as Madeline Richers, in the chorus of a Broadway revival of Florodora. She went on to study singing in Europe, perform there in musicals, variety theater, and nightclubs, tour the B. F. Keith vaudeville circuit in 1925, and sing in New York and Atlantic City clubs before taking Broadway roles later in the decade. In 1929 she entered movies as Lady Roberts in The Royal Box, a German-language feature from Warner Bros., and from 1930 to 1933 RKO Radio Pictures held her under contract, loaning her to Paramount and other studios. Her screen career ended in 1934, when she made a pair of short films with Shemp Howard. She returned to Broadway in Tovarich and Swan Song and made television guest appearances in the early 1950s. She died in 1982.