Marion Michael
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam, nr. 1009. Photo: Ufa.
German film actress and singer
Marion Michael (1940-2007) was a one hit wonder as Liane, the jungle girl. The blond
beauty has become an icon of the German cinema as a female Tarzan.
When she was only 15, Marion Michael was selected out of allegedly
12,000 entries for the lead in Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald
(1956, Eduard von Borsody). This adventure movie was largely shot on
location in Africa. The story is about a girl who is discovered by an
expedition group (which includes Hardy Krüger) in the African jungle.
A tribe adores her as a goddess. It turns out that she is Liane, the
long lost granddaughter of a rich shipowner in Hamburg. Although
Michael appeared topless during the first half of the movie, she was
acceptable for family audiences as the nature child with no obvious
erotic suggestiveness. The movie was a huge box office hit, but
unfortunately this success would not be matched by any of her other
films.
Marion Michael played next in the comedy Der tolle Bomberg (1957, Rolf
Thiele), the sequel Liane, die weiße Sklavin (1957, Hermann Leitner)
and the crime film Bomben auf Monte Carlo (1960, Georg Jacoby) with
Eddie Constantine. During the shooting of Bomben auf Monte Carlo she
had a car accident that left her face temporarily scarred. She
recovered and returned to acting in Schlußakkord (1960, Wolfgang
Liebeneiner), the Schlagerfilm Davon träumen alle Mädchen (1961,
Thomas Engel) and Jack und Jenny (1963, Victor Vicas), but her luck
had faded. The following decade she mainly worked for theatre and tv.
She suffered a severe depression and retired from acting in 1976. For
a while she worked as a saleswoman and in 1979 she took the unusual
step of moving from West to East Germany, where she worked as a
synchronisation assistant for tv. Only occasionally she acted in films
such as In Hassliebe Lola (1995, Lothar Lambert) and Blond bis aufs
Blut (1997, Lothar Lambert). Her life became the topic of a tv
musical, Liane (1996, Horst Königstein). In 2007 she died of heart
failure at the age of 66.