Lotte Lenya was a Tony award-winning actress/singer of The Threepenny Opera and Mack the Knife fame. She made her Broadway debut in 1937's The Eternal Road. Other notable stage credits include Maxwell Anderson's A Candle in the Wind (1941-42), The Firebrand of Florence (1945), Barefoot in Athens (1951), The Threepenny Opera (1954-61) and Cabaret (1966-69).

Some of her feature films include, Semi-Tough, The Appointment and The Threepenny Opera. She was especially memorable as the villainous lesbian in From Russia with Love and was also an Academy Award nominee for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.*

Full, original or maiden name at birth: Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer

Date and place of birth: October 18, 1898, Vienna, Austria

Date, time, place and cause of death: November 27, 1981, at 5:30 p.m., at 300 East 74th Street, New York City, New York, U.S.A. (Cancer)

Marriage #1
Husband: Kurt Weill (m. January 28, 1926 - April 3, 1950) (his death)**

Marriage #2
Husband: George Davis (m. July 7, 1951 - November 25, 1957) (his death)

Marriage #3
Husband: Russell Detwiler (m. November 2, 1962 - October 30, 1969) (his death)

Marriage #4
Husband: Richard Siemanowski (m. June 9, 1971 - 1973) (divorced)

Parents
Father: Franz Paul Blamauer
Mother: Johanna Heinisch

Burial site: Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York, U.S.A.

* She was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, but did not win, contrary to what The Americana Encyclopedia Annual 1982 states in her obituary. It was actually Rita Moreno who took the Academy Award home for her performance in West Side Story.

** Note that Lotte and Kurt actually divorced in the early 1930s, then remarried in New York City in 1937.


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Information Please Almanac

World Almanac and Book of Facts

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