Marianne Hoppe on AllMovie

Her boyish figure a strict departure from such zoftig 1940s German stars as Zarah Leander and Kristina Söderbaum, Marianne Hoppe excelled in the melodramas of Helmut Käutner, notably the home-front morale-booster Auf Wiedersehen, Franziska! (1941). A stage actress of some renown, she had come to the screen in 1933 but didn't really impress until marrying theater legend Gustaf Gründgens in 1936. The Svengali-like Gründgens took hand of her career, both on-stage and on the screen, and she became one of the most popular dramatic actresses of her day, her career continuing unabated after the fall of the Third Reich (and after a brief tenure working in a Berlin refugee camp) and even her 1946 divorce from Gründgens. She has appeared extensively on television.