It is twenty years since Leni Riefenstahl died in September 2003 at the age of 101. She is best known as a Nazi film director but as the large illustrated biography Leni Riefenstahl: five lives (S415.a.200.1) indicates, there were other aspects of her life – dancer and actress before 1933, and photographer and diver after 1945 – and these, rather than her work in the Third Reich, will be the focus of this blog post. 

As a young woman dancing was her passion despite her father’s discouragement. She began to make a career of it but suffered injuries which led to her turning to acting instead. In this respect there are parallels to be drawn with the very slightly older Marlene Dietrich who became an actress after her career as a violinist was cut short by tendonitis. The two women’s lives are contrasted in the recent Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a century in two lives by Karin Wieland (415:3.c.201.1579; the original German version is at 571:73.c.201.5). Continue reading “The long, varied and problematic life of Leni Riefenstahl” →