Tilla Durieux

Who was Tilla Durieux?

Tilla Durieux was a renowned Austrian actress of the first decades of the 20th century. Born Ottilie Godeffroy, she trained in Vienna, her native town and got her first engagement in Breslau. Later she worked with Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator in Berlin.

In 1904, Durieux married the Berlin Secession painter Eugen Spiro, and after their divorce, she remarried in 1910 the successful art dealer and editor Paul Cassirer, who committed suicide in a room next to the court room that pronounced their divorce. Durieux remarried soon afterwards Ludwig Katzenellenbogen. In 1933 she left Germany for Switzerland to escape Nazi rule. In 1937 she moved to Zagreb where she remained until 1953.