On the death of Christiane Hörbiger: The woman everyone loved

Created: 01/12/2022, 09:58

By: Stefanie Thyssen

A scene from "Schtonk": Christiane Hörbiger and Götz George © Oliver Berg

Vienna – He made an exception for her.

That was in 2013. Götz George never liked giving interviews.

And polls like “How do you celebrate Christmas?

What do you wish for the New Year?” his agent always answered with a polite but firm: “No, really not.” But when it came to congratulating Christiane Hörbiger on her 75th birthday, George went along with it.

As one of her many film men.

Hörbiger died yesterday at the age of 84.

According to George (1938-2016) at the time, she was a playmate of the same age, in whom he had “boundless trust”.

In fact, the two had filmed quite a lot together.

In addition to the movie "Schtonk!" wonderful TV stories like "Alpenglühen" or "Blatt und Blume".

"I appreciate and admire her," George continued.

And then add: "Oh nonsense.

You can also put it in a shorter way: I just love her.”

Elmar Wepper (“You look forward to being with her every day”) and Michael Mendl (“I like to play her lover”) congratulated him in a similarly affectionate way.

So Christiane Hörbiger was, one can say that, a highly respected and valued colleague - and a favorite of millions of viewers.

Anyone who met her personally experienced a woman who was extraordinarily beautiful, definitely had something diva-like about her, but who was then able to laugh so heartily at trifles and oddities that one would have liked to spend hour after hour with her and listen to her.

In any case, there was always a lot to tell.

As the daughter of the acting couple Paula Wessely and Attila Hörbiger, she was born with talent.

On the one hand.

On the other hand, the parents didn't want Christiane to follow in their footsteps.

She was supposed to be a confectioner, a confectioner.

"From today's perspective I find that actually impossible," said Hörbiger in an interview with our newspaper in 2009. The reason at the time was that she was awarded the honorary prize of the Bavarian Television Prize.

“My parents meant well, I know, but it's unfair to tell a child what to do.

I find that presumptuous.” Fortunately, things turned out differently.

Probably true.

Thanks to a film producer who did test shots with her, she got out of the pastry shop and was able to become an actress.

It started in the late 1950s.

She attended the renowned Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, which she left to shoot the film "Crown Prince Rudolf's Last Love".

She wanted to play.

Made her stage debut in Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" at the Burgtheater in 1959. However, the critics were not kind to her, and two years later Hörbiger switched to the Municipal Theater in Heidelberg.

After stints in Salzburg and Zurich, she returned to the castle – and was successful.

Then in the 1980s, she made the big leap into television, which gave her a mega-success: In "The Legacy of the Guldenburgs" (1987 to 1990) she played the Countess, alongside colleagues such as Karl-Heinz Vosgerau and Brigitte Horney.

In the years that followed, she was celebrated, among other things, for her portrayal of Freya von Hepp in Helmut Dietl's award-winning satire "Schtonk" about the forged Hitler diaries, for her roles in "Tafelspitz, Lamorte und Hunger".

As a Viennese lawyer in the ARD series "Julia - Eine Unusual Frau" she brought an audience of millions in front of the screens between 1998 and 2003.

When asked about the time in her career that she remembers most fondly, she once replied: "That was actually when I was about 40 years old." So before her big break as a TV star?

Yes!

Because from that moment on, she no longer based her life on the bulletin board at the theater, but designed it according to her own wishes and needs.

"That's when I started going to the open market and was lucky." In the years before she - like every working woman - was very torn between a small child, a beloved man, a small household and working at the Zurich playhouse.

The little kid has grown up, of course.

Sascha Bigler, born in 1968, works successfully as an author and director.

The relationship between the two was always close.

Certainly also because his father, the Swiss journalist Rolf R. Bigler, died of a heart attack when the son was just ten years old.

Sascha Bigler and Christiane Hörbiger also worked together.

He shot the 2013 film "My Sister" with her in the leading role.

"We're more friends than a typical mother-son relationship," Bigler once said in an interview with our newspaper.

"We speak as equals.

I would say Christiane is my best friend. ”His grief will now be infinite.

Just like the many colleagues and last but not least the spectators who have taken this great lady of the art of acting into their hearts.

Christiane Hörbiger with the then Prime Minister Horst Seehofer © Marcus Schlaf

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Christiane Hörbiger (right) with her mother, actress Paula Wessely, and actor Theo Lingen.

© ullstein bild Dtl.