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No German star played self-sacrificing womanhood better than blond Luise Ullrich and it should come as no surprise that her best film, Annelie (1941), became the main morale-booster of World War II Germany, grossing an impressive seven million marks for its producer, the omnipotent Ufa. Of minor Austro-Hungarian nobility, Ullrich had played in Herbert Sudermann's Heimat on-stage in Berlin when discovered by Luis Trenker, who cast her as his leading lady in the "mountain melodrama" Der Rebell (1932). Although she was upstaged by both Trenker and the Alps, Ullrich gave a thoughtful performance and was equally praised for her performance in Liebelei (1933), which some thought she stole outright from its star, Magda Schneider. Near the end of the war, she played Henrik Ibsen's Nora (1944), a butchered version of A Doll's House that came complete with an uplifting ending and none too subtle touches of anti-Semitism. She survived it all and became a noted author in the postwar era.