Charlott Daudert(1913-1961)
- Actress
Whatever her limitations as an actress, Charlott Daudert made up for
with wide-eyed effervescence and a cute, feisty personality. The bubbly
blonde began working life as editor of the children's section of a
newspaper (as 'Aunty Charlotte') in her home town of Königsberg, East
Prussia. She also dabbled in drafting costume designs. The abandonment
of her journalistic career seems to have come about all of a sudden and
quite by accident: accompanying a friend to a theatrical audition as
'moral support' resulted in Charlotte, not the friend, being signed up for drama school. Her 'discovery' is generally credited to the renowned actor Max Pallenberg
who took on the role of her mentor. Known by her peers as 'Charly', she
made her debut in a minuscule part in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About
Nothing" and spent the next three years at Tilsit's Stadttheater under
Pallenberg's direction. Following a brief stint in local radio, she
then moved on to wider canvases in Berlin where she underwent further
tuition by Leopold Jessner.
By 1933, Charly had developed into an accomplished comedienne and come
to the attention of Trude Hesterberg.
She began performing comedy routines and singing in various popular
cabarets, including "Musenschaukel" and "Die Katakombe". At the same
time, she spiced up the screen as perpetually naive, sexy friends of
the heroine. Her output was rather heavily weighted towards escapist
entertainments, some of them not at all bad:
April, April! (1935),
Der Etappenhase (1937),
Kitty et la conférence mondiale (1939).
Resuming in the same vein in the aftermath of World War II, the ever
likeable, pert, dizzy Charlott warbled a popular hit song ("Ach du
liebe Zeit, hat den kein Mensch mehr für die Liebe Zeit") in the ruins
of Berlin in
Nacht ohne Sünde (1950). There
were diverse other supporting roles in box-office hits, including the
caper comedies Klettermaxe (1952) and
Der blaue Stern des Südens (1951).
Sadly, despite her enduring popularity as a conveyor of uncomplicated
happiness, genuine stardom was never to be on the cards. The decline of
Charly's career was to be exacerbated by depression and alcoholism. On
occasion, she would come on stage and forget or fumble her lines. By
the autumn of 1960, she was making plans to retire from acting and run
an artists B & B in Monaco. It never came to pass. Just four months
later she was dead from a blood disorder at the age of 47.
