Christine Kaufmann

Who is Christine Kaufmann?

Christine Maria Kaufmann is a German actress. The daughter of a German father and a French mother, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress in 1961, the first German to be so honoured.

Kaufmann became a ballerina at the Munich Opera. She started her film career at the age of seven in the 1952 adaptation of The White Horse Inn. The film which brought her fame was Rosen-Resli, released in 1954, when she was only nine. She gained international recognition when she starred with Steve Reeves in The Last Days of Pompeii and with Kirk Douglas in Town Without Pity. The following year she appeared in Escape from East Berlin.

In 1963, Kaufmann married Tony Curtis, whom she had met during the filming of Taras Bulba. They had two daughters, Alexandra and Allegra. They divorced in 1968. Kaufmann resumed her career, which she had interrupted during her marriage.

Kaufmann is also a successful businesswoman, promoting her own cosmetics products line that sells well in Germany. She has written several books about beauty and health, as well as two autobiographies. She speaks three languages: German, English, and French.