Michaela May: The drama about my siblings

Created: 02/24/2022, 08:00

By: Stefanie Thyssen

Michaela May (2nd from right) with her siblings Hans, Gundi and Karl (from left).

"We had a lot of nature around us." © Michaela May

Michaela May wrote her autobiography on the occasion of her 70th birthday.

In "Behind the Smile" she reveals the dark secret of her family history.

We spoke to the popular Munich actress about it.

There is hardly a photo where she is not beaming.

There is hardly an event where she does not answer questions in a good mood, chats with colleagues, laughs, enjoys.

Michaela May is not only one of the most sought-after actresses in Germany, but – it seems – a deeply content, positive woman.

It is hard to believe that more than 40 years ago she, the mother of two grown-up daughters and married to director Bernd Schadewald for the second time, suffered three severe blows of fate: Between 1974 and 1982, her three siblings took their own lives.

First Karl, her second eldest brother, three years later the eldest, Hans (fall from the window of his apartment in Pasing), finally the little sister Gundi hanged herself.

The dramas of her life – Michaela May has never spoken about her publicly.

Now she is writing about her tragic life story in her autobiography, out today on the occasion of her 70th birthday on March 18, and also speaking about it in an updated episode of BR's "Lebenslinien" from 2017 (airing March 14).

In an interview with our newspaper, the "through and through Munich native" explains what prompted her to make what she experienced public and how her job helped her to process it.

After 40 years, Michaela May tells her family secret © Britta Pedersen

Your autobiography “Behind the Smile” will be published today.

Why did you choose this title?

Michaela May:

I'm actually always seen in public as a strong woman who radiates happiness.

That was often reflected in the roles I was cast for: the tough woman who masters everything and takes life lightly.

With the title and with the whole book I wanted to say: there are things in my life that lie behind the appearance of happiness, behind the looseness.

You tell for the first time that your three siblings took their own lives.

All suffered from depression.

That was more than 40 years ago.

Why are you making this tragic story public now?

Michaela May:

I wanted to protect my mother, my father and myself. At some point my parents decided that they didn't want to talk about what had happened.

Neither about the birthdays of my siblings nor about the days of death.

Above all, they wanted people who didn't know anything about this story to be able to face them completely impartially, without this flaw: This is the woman who lost three children.

It kind of closed the door to the past for all of us.

Her father has been dead for a few years, and her mother died in early 2019.

Michael May:

Yes.

After that I started to work through this family tragedy.

Don't push them any further.

In addition, for years there have been requests from several publishers to write my autobiography.

I thought: If I have something to tell, then I don't want to wallow in my own summary and full of praise for all the great things I've done.

A book like this only made sense to me if I dealt with my childhood and youth in it.

What memories of your siblings came up?

Michaela May:

Above all, I have memories of a very happy childhood.

We had a lot of nature around us.

My father was a great nature lover, my mother a great gardener and an artistic person.

We spent wonderful summers on our property on the Ammersee, initially we lived in a chicken coop that my father had expanded.

He later built a house on the property.

My cousins ​​grew up next door.

That was really nice.

We had a very happy, carefree childhood.

Nothing to suggest your siblings were literally suicidal?

Michaela May:

No, nothing at all.

The question that always comes up after a suicide is why.

Michaela May:

Of course that kept me busy.

However, I haven't found an answer.

I really can't explain the root of it all at all.

Even the doctors at the time could do that only with difficulty or not at all.

My younger brother was always said to have grown too fast.

The nerves didn't really come along.

That was the explanation.

Medicine wasn't very advanced back then when it came to illnesses like depression.

Michaela May:

That's exactly one point, yes.

At that time they worked with electric shocks and the like.

Unimaginable today.

All I can say is that it certainly wasn't because of our childhood.

I can't see anything my parents did wrong either.

I'm convinced that we shouldn't blame ourselves for not being able to turn things around.

The lifeline of everyone flows independently.

You can try to change direction.

But whether that succeeds – there are many mechanisms involved.

Are you afraid of depression yourself?

Michaela May:

No, I have no tendency to depression at all.

I enjoy life, I want to experience and take everything I can with me.

I know life can be short.

My reaction to what happened very early on was: I let the past be and see the positive in life.

The year my sister died I was pregnant with my first daughter.

That was a great consolation for all of us.

New life, that gave hope.

You say you want to encourage other people with the book.

Michaela May:

Yes, that's important to me.

I'm not a life coach, and I don't want to be.

But I think everyone has to carry their own baggage.

You can wrestle with it and feel sorry for yourself, but it won't help you much.

I wanted to tell you how I felt.

The book was like therapy for me.

To what extent did acting help you process what you experienced?

In 1974, when your first brother died, you were just starting the “Munich Stories”.

Michaela May:

Acting gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in other characters, in other biographies, in other worlds.

I could throw myself into other lives.

That freed me a bit from this gloomy situation.

The job was and still is a great gift.

That was particularly good in the situations at the time.

Do you think this side of yourself that you are showing now will also change the roles that are offered to you?

That in the future you will play the taffe a little less often, but also the vulnerable now and then?

Michaela May:

It's not like I've only ever played these happy, strong women.

I also played the Abyssal.

Those were always the raisins I liked picking out.

Then I was able to show what was still in me.

But for the most part you're right: I was always brought in when a strong female character was needed.

The famous drawer.

Michael May:

Yes.

For example, it was always funny when I was shooting with Hannelore (Elsner, editor's note).

She was always the femme fatale and I was the good, balancing wife.

(Laughs.) Most recently at the “Family Festival”.

Whether it will be different now in the future, I don't know and I don't care.

I just wanted to say with my family history: That's me too.

That's the way I am.

I also have other facets than just the strong.

I can't say what that does to my public image.

That's not why I wrote the book.

Information about the book: Michaela May:

"Behind the smile".

Piper Verlag, Munich, 256 pages;

22 euros.

Reading:

Michaela May will present her book on Thursday,

March 10, 8 p.m. in the

Munich Literaturhaus, Salvatorplatz 1;

Tickets - also for

the live stream - at 01806/70 07 33 or at literaturhaus-muenchen.

reservix.de.