Gardy Granass

Born in Berlin as Hildegard Erika Charlotte Granass, 'Gardy' was schooled in the art of ballet from the age of six under the tutelage of internationally renowned dancer and choreographer Tatjana Gsovsky. At sixteen, she took to the stage. Three years later, having taken private acting lessons from Herma Clement in Berlin, she made her film debut in the circus drama Tromba (1949) (footnote: star René Deltgen, the picture's titular evil animal trainer/hypnotist, was attacked by a tiger during the final scene and had to be hospitalized). During the 50s, Gardy became popular for her charming ingénues and romantic leads in escapist comedies and Heimatfilms: with Fita Benkhoff in the screwball farce Kein Engel ist so rein (1950) and the twee rom-com Drei Mädels vom Rhein (1955); as O.W. Fischer's old flame in the love story Heidelberger Romanze (1951) (for this performance, Gardy shared a German Film Prize in 1952 as Most Promising Newcomer); with Karlheinz Böhm in Hochzeit auf Reisen (1953) and as Hardy Krüger's love interest in the Karl Anton-directed Facteur en jupons (1956).

With audience interest in the Heimatfilm genre waning, Grady segued into character roles on television. She played a police inspector's wife in the hugely successful Francis Durbridge-inspired thriller Das Halstuch (1962) and later co-starred as a pharmacist, romantically involved with a country doctor (Rudolf Prack) in the popular drama series Landarzt Dr. Brock (1967). She also featured in all eight episodes of the family series Großer Mann was nun? (1967), starring Gustav Knuth.

Gardy Granass has been a German dubbing voice in films for Estelle Parsons, Valerie Hobson, Diane Baker and Irene Tsu. She was married to Werner Hess, a writer and former director of broadcasting.