Austrian actress Senta Berger was born while Vienna was under siege; reportedly, her family was bombed out four times before she was five. Enrolled in ballet school, Senta was asked to leave at 14 because she had "developed" too much. She studied drama at the Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, then began her German film career in 1957. The publicity folks said that Senta won her first English-language role in The Secret Ways (1961) when star Richard Widmark spotted her riding a bicycle. Most American film fans first saw the sensuous Senta on, of all places, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, in that 1963 TV series' two-parter "The Waltz King." Though an actress of more than average talent, Senta was regarded as just another European sex bomb by most Hollywood publicity flacks; her fine performance as an Israeli freedom fighter in Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) took second consideration to the well-circulated still photos from that film, in which she was seen in form-fitting shorts. By 1970, Senta Berger evidently gave up any hopes of being taken seriously, agreeing to appear in the caveman spoof When Women Had Tails.
by Hal Erickson
biography
