Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) started on her road to fame and influence when she was accepted into the acting school of the Royal Danish Theatre at the age of 18. Twenty years old she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Jesta, and it's typical for her that this Number One "career-stopper" of women at that time did not stop her. Instead of hiding her child or putting her up for adoption she kept her and even had the audacity to keep her own Miss-title instead of attaining a fake Mrs-title.
When staying in hotels she signed the visitor's book as "Miss Nielsen and daughter". She married three times and her last, very late marriage was with a much younger man, Anders Christian Theede, who is reputed to have been an avid fan. So were her two prior husbands, the movie maker Urban Gad and Ferdinand Wingardh.
Many may have been shocked by such an affront to society and the double standard, but then she shocked the world with more than that. For instance, the reason why she is almost unknown in USA is the erotic explicitness in much of her acting. Her film were heavily censored by the Americans and it was in Europe she gained her fame. She made 74 films and of these 70 were made in Germany as the Germans took her to their heart as Die Asta (i.e. The Asta). In The year 1924 she was starring with a rising star, Greta Garbo, who eventually was to surpass her in fame, but not in acting skills. Actually, she did not find her performance very high class.
In the 1920s she had formed her own studio in Berlin, but with the rise of Nazism she made up her mind to return to Denmark even though the Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, offered her many new opportunities in this new Germany of Nazis. Back in Denmark she did not obtain the position she wished for, maybe because she was known as "difficult" which in reality means that she set high standards and had her own ideas of film and film making. For instance, she stopped filming and only worked on stage when the movie industry had the new feature of sounds. She knew that that was not convergent with her acting style.
However, she may have had a rich life even after the German experience of becoming so very famous as she now started to write and to make collages. Also she did her best to help Jews in Germany by sending money and food parcels to concentration camp-prisoners. As to her writing it was primarily autobiographical and in "Den tiende muse" (1945-46) (i.e. "The Tenth Muse") she gives a most interesting portrait of herself, her career and the time of the silent movie.
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