- Born
- Died
- Birth nameHenriette Margarethe Hiebel
- Nickname
- Henny
- La Jana was the stage name of the brunette Viennese-born actress and exotic dancer Henriette 'Henny' Hiebel. She was trained as a ballerina for ten years and first performed at the Frankfurt Kinderoper at the age of eight. Of boyishly slim build, she appeared on stage in cabaret in 1921. Soon after, she was reputedly discovered for the screen by the director Géza von Cziffra at the Chat Noir cabaret in Paris. She received good publicity from a successful tour of Britain, during which the press alternately touted her as being Spanish or Hungarian. The build-up continued with glamour photographs for Vogue magazine. Movies followed and La Jana hit the big time with Le saut de la mort (1937) (dancing on a giant tambourine) and Les étoiles brillent (1938). Propelled to instant stardom, she came to represent oriental or Latin mystery and allure as the scantily-clad heroines of Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1938), Le Tombeau hindou (1938) (as the high priestess of a cult) and Etoile de Rio (1940).
Her life ended tragically young at the very peak of her popularity. She died of pneumonia at the age of 35, a fact which rather cemented her cult status. Since she left few personal notes, little of La Jana's life is known. This has given life to unverified rumours and scuttlebutt. One fanciful story has it that she aided in the escape from Nazi Germany of Jewish acting colleagues and was consequently murdered by the SS.
La Jana was married to the opera star Michael Bohnen and was said to have previously been romantically involved with Wilhelm, the last Crown Prince of the former German Empire.- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis
- There were rumors of an affair between her and Joseph Goebbels.
- The sound film brought her the great breakthrough. Her dancing extras were underlined in an optimal way with the audible music and she had great successes with her appearances in "Der Schlemihl" (1931), "Truxa" (1936) and especially in the two-parter "Der Tiger von Eschnapur" (1937) and "Das indische Grabmal" (1937) where she convinced as a exotic Maharani which turned the men's heads.
- In the winter of 1939/40, La Jana was engaged for a multi-city tour of Germany entertaining the troops, since her fame made her an assured draw. In February 1940, she fell ill with bilateral pneumonia, and she died on 13 March 1940 in Wilmersdorf. The premiere of her last film, Stern von Rio, took place a week later on 20 March at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo.
- After she travelled to India with Richard Eichberg, millions admired her in the films she made there, Der Tiger von Eschnapur and Das indische Grabmal,which also featured Frits van Dongen, Theo Lingen and Gisela Schlüter amongst others.
- According to contemporary reports, she was first discovered in Frankfurt, at the Weinklause cabaret, before going to Berlin to dance. Another story is that she was brought in at a day's notice to replace the ailing star of a revue in Dresden and later received engagements in Berlin as a result.
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