Dorothea Wieck — Girl with "Uniform" Appeal! (1933) 🇺🇸
My name is not Wike," smiled Dorothea Wieck, doubtless for the hundredth time since her arrival in America. "It is Wieck — Veek! And I am not a 'fraulein;' I am married, you know, a Miss-iss! My husband is Baron Ernst von der Decken, and we have been married already six months."
When Maedchen in Uniform swept the country, breaking precedents everywhere for foreign film popularity, expectant glances began shooting toward the general direction of Berlin. For, while Maedchen was a fine, sensitive, heart-reaching story, what contributed largely to its beauty was the exquisite performance given by this same Dorothea Wieck as the gracious, understanding, and hauntingly beautiful young teacher.
And so, by a perfectly logical sequence of events, (Dorothea Wieck is now in the United States, about to begin an American picture career under the Paramount banner.
It was the last of her few busy days in New York before departing westward for the Coast that was saved for me to meet Miss Wieck. Managers, liaison men, publicity representatives, photographers and sound gentlemen cluttered up her hotel suite in a manner befitting the visiting star's eminence. She was about to be conducted to a scenic suburban spot on the outskirts of the city to do her first screen acting in America — a short newsreel in which she would be welcomed to this country for celluloid purposes. And through all the helter-skelter of preparation she retained perfect ease and self-possession, conversing untroubledly with the seven or eight men surrounding her singly, in groups, or en bloc.
"So many men, and only one woman," she laughed. "Do you not think my English is good? Only thirty lessons I have had so far. No, I did not imagine New York to be like this. In another country you cannot imagine it, no matter how much they tell you — only you must see it for yourself!"
Quite like the lovely instructress of the motion picture is this young woman in appearance — but considerably unlike her in manner. For Miss Wieck betrayed an airy vivaciousness, a friendly good humor, and above all an eager interest in everything going on about her, not easily related to the quiet, almost sphinx-like reserve of her most famous screen incarnation. Her large, very light blue eyes sparkled animatedly as she talked.
Among Miss Wiecks' predilections are red-heeled shoes, Garbo, dachshund pups, Chevalier, boiled eggs for breakfast, Jackie Cooper, and the New York theatre. And the greatest of these is the New York theatre.
"Your plays!" she rhapsodized. "They are marvelous! These few days I have been to the theatre twenty times —"
"Seven times," corrected Mr. Gumpel, her manager.
"Twenty times," insisted Miss Wieck. "So many things to see, to hear, it must have been twenty! Which one I liked the best? Ach, yes, I know! It is that one with such pretty music, and that funny Zhimmy with the great, big nose. Pink Me Strike, they call it."
During the drive out "on location" for the newsreel take, she told of the course of events in Europe that had led to her coming to America, a widely-acclaimed film star.
"That I should become an actress in Germany was natural, for both my parents were artistic. There is always an actor in our family, each generation at least one. My uncle, August Palme, was a very famous actor in Sweden, and created many of the roles written by the great Strindberg.
"When I was a schoolgirl we children used to act plays for our friends and our parents. It was a regular little theatre — people came to hear us, and told us when we were good and when we were bad. One day, when I was yet fifteen, a professor from the University of Munich heard me recite and act, and he took me to see Reinhardt at Vienna. For Reinhardt I recited a scene from Ibsen's Wild Duck, and when I finished he asked me to join his company for a four-year contract. It was the happiest of all days for me!"
The young actress did not remain long with Reinhardt, however. Impatient of his leisurely, detailed method of training, she obtained her release at the end of six months and joined the Münchener Kammerspiele at Munich. After playing a number of varied roles there, she accepted an offer from a moving picture company in the same city, and starred in a succession of films, her debut picture being called "Heimliche Sunder." Then back for another engagement at the Kammerspiele, and a term with the Frankfurt Schauspielhaus at Frankfurt-am-Main. Her acting experience ran the entire gamut of roles, from small comedy bits to singing roles in light opera and leads in Shakespeare and Andreyev. Finally Carl Froelich called her to Berlin for the part in Maedchen in Uniform that brought her world-wide fame and a summons to Hollywood.
Shortly before sailing for the United States Miss Wieck completed another picture, "Anna and Elizabeth," with the little blonde Hertha Thiele, who was the young schoolgirl in Maedchen in Uniform. This new picture possesses the same spiritual, elusive quality that distinguished their former vehicle, and in it Miss Wieck again plays a non-romantic role. But she would have you know that she has no intention of wasting her widely varied experience gained on the European stage and screen by permitting herself to become "typed." In her future pictures she would like to play dramatic or tragic parts of the classical type: Mme. Bovary or Thäis, for example.
Judging from her camera presence in the brief bit of action she performed that morning, Dorothea Wieck need have no qualms about being able to "get herself across" on the American screen. "Splendid — you can see she's had marvelous training," was the comment of Bill Frawley, stage actor, who had the greeter's role in the newsreel. (And by the way, how much longer are the producers going to allow this expert and amusing young actor to remain off the screen?)
Miss Wieck's first American "picture" was completed, and the party headed for New York. On the way home she was discussing with Frawley the stage play, Twentieth Century, in which she had seen him act a few evenings before.
"Eugenie Leontovich, who heads the cast, is a great admirer of yours," remarked Frawley.
"Thank you," Dorothea Wieck responded. "Please give her my greetings — tell her I am sorry I did not meet her, and that I hope she breaks her neck!"
General consternation! That is, until Miss Wieck, much amused, explained that this is the invariable form of good wishes among Continental actors. To wish "good luck," on the other hand, is deemed unlucky in their reverse code of stage superstition.
So, auf wiedersehen, Dorothea Wieck — or Baroness von der Decken. And, when you face the cameras in Hollywood, here's hoping you "break your neck"!
The fragile beauty of her face and the subtle charm of her acting startled the screen world when Maedchen in Uniform was released. And now Dorothea Wieck is ready to achieve new artistic heights in Hollywood.
Miss Wieck, as the sympathetic teacher, confronts the tyrannical headmistress in a tense scene from Maedchen, the picture that made Dorothea world-famous.
Collection: Screenland Magazine, July 1933