Anita Berber
| Anita Berber | |
|---|---|
 German postage stamp depicting Otto Dix's painting of Anita Berber |
|
| Born | 10 June 1899 Leipzig, Germany |
| Died | 10 November 1928 Kreuzberg, Germany |
| Occupation | Dancer, actress, writer, and prostitute |
Anita Berber (10 June 1899 – 10 November 1928) was a German dancer, actress, writer, and prostitute who was the subject of an Otto Dix painting. She lived during the Weimar period.
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[edit] Early life
Born in Leipzig to musician parents who later divorced, she was raised mainly by her grandmother in Dresden. By the age of 16, she had moved to Berlin and made her debut as a cabaret dancer. By 1918 she was working in film, and she began dancing nude in 1919. Scandalously androgynous, she quickly made a name for herself. She wore heavy dancer's make-up, which on the black-and-white photos and films of the time came across as jet black lipstick painted across the heart-shaped part of her skinny lips, and charcoaled eyes.[1]
[edit] Notoriety in Berlin
Her hair was cut fashionably into a short bob and was frequently bright red, as in 1925 when the German painter Otto Dix painted a portrait of her, titled "The Dancer Anita Berber". Her dancer friend and sometime lover Sebastian Droste, who performed in the film Algol (1920), was skinny and had black hair with gelled up curls much like sideburns. Neither of them wore much more than lowslung loincloths and Anita occasionally a corsage worn well below her small breasts.[1]
Her performances broke boundaries with their androgyny and total nudity, but it was her public appearances that really challenged taboos. Berber's overt drug addiction and bisexuality were matters of public chatter.[2] She could often be seen in Berlin's hotel lobbies, nightclubs and casinos; she would walk around naked except for a sable fur, carrying a pet monkey and a silver brooch full of cocaine, while flaunting her lesbian lovers—removing the barrier between performance and normal life.[citation needed] In addition to her addiction to cocaine, opium and morphine, one of Berber's favourites was chloroform and ether mixed in a bowl.[3] This would be stirred with a white rose, the petals of which she would then eat.[4]
Aside from her addiction to narcotic drugs, she was also a heavy alcoholic. In 1928, at the age of 29, she suddenly gave up alcohol completely, but died later the same year. She was said to be surrounded by empty morphine syringes.[4] According to Mel Gordon, in The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Debauchery,[5] she was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis while performing abroad. After collapsing in Damascus, she returned to Germany and died in a Kreuzberg hospital on 10 November 1928. She was buried in a pauper's grave in St. Thomas Cemetery in Neukölln.[6]
[edit] Marriages
She was reportedly married three times (the second time to Droste).
[edit] Legacy
A 1987 film by Rosa von Praunheim titled Anita - Tänze des Lasters centers around the life of Anita Berber.[7]
The band Death in Vegas named a song after her, which is on the album Satan's Circus. It is frequently used on the NPR radio show This American Life.
[edit] Selected filmography
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Glitter & Doom - Anita, mon amour". Wound Magazine (London) 1 (1): 150–151. November 2007. ISSN 1755-800X.
- ^ Pettis, Ruth M. (16 August 2005). "Berber, Anita". glbtq.com. http://www.glbtq.com/arts/berber_a.html. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
- ^ Mel Gordon (1 May 2006). Voluptuous panic: the erotic world of Weimar Berlin. Feral House. pp. 9–. ISBN 978-1-932595-11-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=3rEfDGj7G_QC&pg=PR9. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
- ^ a b Berlin: Metropolis of Vice. Paradigm Pictures, 2005.
- ^ Mel Gordon (2006). The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Debauchery. Los Angeles, California: Feral House. ISBN 1-932595-12-0.
- ^ "Anarchists of Style: Anita Berber, Part 2" http://www.wornthrough.com/2011/01/11/anarchists-of-style-anita-berber-part-2/.
- ^ "Anita - Tänze des Lasters". The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092568. Retrieved 2007-11-13.
[edit] Bibliography
- Gordon, Mel (2006) The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Debauchery. Los Angeles, California: Feral House
- Capovilla, Andrea (2001) "Berber, Anita" in: Aldrich, Robert & Wotherspoon, Garry (eds.) Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II. New York: Routledge; pp. 50–51
- Fischer, Lothar (1996) Tanz zwischen Rausch und Tod: Anita Berber, 1918-1928 in Berlin. Berlin: Haude und Spener
- Funkenstein, Susan Laikin (2005) "Anita Berber: Imaging a Weimar Performance Artist" in: Woman's Art Journal 26.1 (Spring/Summer 2005); pp. 26–31
- Gill, Anton (1993) A Dance between the Flames: Berlin between the Wars. New York: Carroll & Graf
- Jarrett, Lucinda (1997) Stripping in Time: a history of erotic dancing. London: Pandora (HarperCollins); pp. 112–135
- Richie, Alexandra (1998) Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin. New York: Carroll and Graf
- Toepfer, Karl Eric (1997) Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935. Berkeley: University of California Press
