Valeska Gert

Biography

Valeska Gert was born as Gertrud Valesca Samosch in Berlin to a Jewish family on January 11, 1892. Exhibiting no interest in academics or office work, she began taking dance lessons at the age of nine. This, combined with her love of ornate fashion, led her to a career in dance and performance art. In 1915, she studied acting with Maria Moissi, and dance with Rita Sacchetto. Following engagements at the Deutsches Theater and the Tribüne in Berlin, Gert was invited to perform in expressionist plays in Dadaist mixed media art nights. Her performances in Oskar Kokoschka's Hiob (1918), Ernst Toller's Transformation (1919), and Frank Wedekind's Franziska earned her popularity. In the 1920s, Gert premiered one of her more provocative works, titled Canaille (meaning a prostitute). Also in the 1920s, Gert's other progressive performances included dancing a traffic accident, boxing, or dying. She was revolutionary and radical and never ceased to simultaneously shock and fascinate her audiences. By 1923, Gert focused her work partially on film acting, performing with Andrews Engelmann, Arnold Korff, and others. She performed in G.W. Pabst's Joyless Street in 1925, Diary of a Lost Girl in 1929, and The Threepenny Opera in 1931. In 1933, Gert's Jewish heritage resulted in her being banned from the German stage. Her exile from Germany sent her to London for some time, where she worked both in theatre and film. In 1939, she emigrated to the United States, where she was cared for by a Jewish refugee community. In summer 1940, she found work posing as a nude model for an artist in Provincetown (Massachusetts). By the end of 1941, she had opened the Beggar's Bar in New York City. It was a cabaret/restaurant that was filled with mismatched furniture and lamps. Julian Beck, Judith Malina, and Jackson Pollock worked for her. In February 1945, Gert had to close her Beggar's Bar despite its success, due to a lack of official permits. Gert spent every summer in Provincetown until 1946, when she opened her new cabaret Valeska's there. In 1947 she returned to Europe. After stays in Paris and Zurich, where she ran a cabaret café called Valeska und ihr Küchenpersonal (Valeska and her kitchen staff) for half a year in 1948, she went back to Blockaded Berlin. There she first opened the cabaret Bei Valeska in the former Opernkeller (Opera cellar) at the Theater des Westens in 1949–1950. In 1976, Gert made her comeback in film. In 1965, she had a role in Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits, the success of which caused her to market herself to young German directors in the 1970s.