BLEIBTREU, HEDWIG

(1868-1958)

   Actress. Bleibtreu made her acting debut at age 4 in a Ferdinand Raimund production in which both her parents (Sigmund and Amalie Bleibtreu) were performing. She attended acting classes at a Vienna conservatory and made her professional debut in Augsburg at age 17. She had engagements in numerous theaters until her breakthrough as Klärchen in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Egmont at the Burgtheater in Vienna—again with her parents in the cast. Bleibtreu remained at the Burg for several years, playing heroine roles opposite Friedrich Mitterwurzer and later Josef Kainz. She spent 60 years as a permanent member of the Burg company, while also appearing in several films. Among the most memorable of her many films roles was Anna Sacher, the cigar-smoking wife of the hotelier who invented the Sacher torte, and the Landlady with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten in The Third Man. In the 1950s she received several awards and citations for her work and contributions to Austrian theatrical art.