Biography

Monika Peitsch began her working life as a dental assistant while simultaneously engaged as an extra at the Berlin Hebbel Theater. Encouraged by the veteran Erik Ode to seriously pursue her acting ambitions, she went on to take drama classes under Marlise Ludwig and duly made her screen debut in 1957. Between 1960 and 1965, she was able to further hone her craft as an ensemble member of the Schillertheater in Berlin. On various German stages she has subsequently excelled in plays like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Look Back in Anger.

A film career of note never quite materialised, merely a handful of appearances in lurid thrillers and crime dramas like Hotel der toten Gäste (1965) and Le bossu de Londres (1966). Faring considerably better on television, the actress achieved significant audience popularity through her role as daughter of the redoubtable Inge Meysel in the landmark family drama Die Unverbesserlichen (1965). She further cemented that popularity as co-star (with Anita Kupsch) of Okay S.I.R. (1972), playing half of a dynamic (not to mention glamorous) globe-trotting duo of crime fighters in service of a (fictitious) organization called EUROPOL, confronting all manner of hair-raising perils to rescue agents in order to save secret formulas from falling into the wrong hands, smashing drug syndicates and bringing to justice slavers, murderers, thieves and extortionists. The series has often been described as a kind of German Drôles de dames (1976).

Peitsch has also guested in popular crime shows (Der Kommissar (1969), Dem Täter auf der Spur (1967), etc.), enjoyed recurring supporting roles in family dramas (Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (1987), Der Millionenerbe (1990)) and occasionally headlined in literary adaptations like Fontane's Die Geschichte des Rittmeisters Schach von Wuthenow (1966). Usually cast as elegant, insightful women, she acted against type at least once, essaying a murderess in the Francis Durbridge TV thriller Plötzlich und unerwartet ... (1985).

Peitsch has won a silver 'Bravo Otto' award as Germany's second most popular television actress of 1973 (American Susan Dey picked up top honours for that year). In addition to her long and varied TV career, she has also done radio plays (for instance, Perry Rhodan) and provided the German dubbing for stars like Diana Rigg, Barbara Stanwyck, Deborah Kerr, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and Morgan Fairchild.

- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis