Almut Eggert(1937-2023)

She was born in Rostock into a cultivated, well-to-do family, the daughter of stage director Walter Eggert and actress/ author Agnes-Marie Grisebach (1913-2011). With her schooling completed in 1951, the family took her to Heidelberg where Almut proceeded to study for her diploma as a cosmetician. It is unclear whether she worked for very long in that profession, since, by 1956, she had moved to Berlin to take acting classes at a drama school. Graduating in 1959, she married the actor Wolfgang Spier and became known as Almut Eggert-Spier. They had two daughters (one adopted), both of whom later also followed the acting path. The union with Spier ended in divorce in 1965.

Almut began her performing career in 1958 on stage at the Vaganten Bühne, located in the most fashionable part of Berlin Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, near the zoological gardens and the Kurfürstendamm. For the next fifteen years, she was cast in leading roles at various theatres in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stuttgart. From 1972 to 1973, she plied her trade as an ensemble member of the famous Berlin cabaret Die Stachelschweine.

Following her screen debut in 1958, Almut appeared in a number of films made for television, primarily as a supporting actress but with occasional leads in comedies and romances like Wiedersehen auf Raten (1963), Die Liebenden von Florenz (1966) and Klein Erna auf dem Jungfernstieg (1969). Guest spots in TV shows have included Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and Tatort (1970). She also had a recurring role as a highway police chief inspector in Alerte Cobra (1996), an expensively produced action series filled with car chases, fight scenes and spectacular explosions.

Almut Eggert's most voluminous body of work was in the area of voice dubbing. Truly prolific, she was the German synchronizing voice for stars like Candice Bergen, Lee Remick, Madeline Kahn,Raquel Welch, Gena Rowlands, Ursula Andress and Stella Stevens, among numerous others. She became well known in Germany for her work on horror movies, including the Dracula and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises. She was also the German voice of Lorraine Gary (as Ellen Brody) in Les Dents de la mer (1975) and that of Adrienne Barbeau (as Stevie Wayne) in John Carpenter's Fog (1980). Additionally, she took on adapting scripts of Arabesque (1984) for German consumption.

Almut's active performing career waned in the late 1990s, though she continued her dubbing work well into the next decade.