Tilla Durieux Jewellery
Tilla Durieux
Tilla Durieux (b. 1880 in Vienna) performed under Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater from 1905, and frequently at the Lessing Theatre from 1911, but also made guest appearances abroad, and was world-famous – not least because of her marriage to the internationally known art dealer Paul Cassirer – as a grand dame in society as well as an actress.
In 1927/28, together with her third husband, the brewery owner Ludwig Katzenellenbogen, Tilla Durieux financed the Piscatorbühne (Piscator Theatre) at Berlin’s Nollendorfplatz. Fleeing the Nazis after their takeover of Germany, the couple eventually arrived by a circuitous route in Yugoslavia and settled in the Croatian city of Zagreb. In 1941, Ludwig Katzenellenbogen was kidnapped by fascists and died two years later. Tilla Durieux joined the Yugoslav resistance movement.
After the end of the Second World War, Durieux first worked at the Zagreb Puppet Theatre and did not return to German stages until 1952. She performed under Boleslaw Barlog at the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin (Berlin State Theatres) and, in particular, under Erwin Piscator at the Freie Volksbühne theatre, as well as in Hamburg, Cologne, Lübeck, and Basel. In 1961, she was elected a member of the Akademie der Künste (West) and – in addition to many other honours – was made an honorary member of the Deutsches Theater in what was then East Berlin. Tilla Durieux died on 21 February 1971.