Adele Sandrock

Who was Adele Sandrock?

Adele Sandrock was a German actress. After a successful theatrical career, she became one of the first German film stars.

Sandrock was born as Adele Feldern-Förster in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. After a rocky childhood, she went to Berlin at the age of fifteen to become an actress. Her first major role was in Mutter und Sohn by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. She achieved success in the town of Meiningen, where her first role was Luise in Friedrich Schiller's Kabale und Liebe. In 1889 she moved to Vienna, where she created a number of major roles for modern playwrights including Henrik Ibsen and Arthur Schnitzler, with whom she had a notoriously stormy affair.

In 1911 Sandrock made her silent film debut in Marianne, ein Weib aus dem Volk, a short subject. She acted in more than 140 films, working with a number of directors including Reinhold Schünzel and Hans Hinrich. Her autobiography, Mein Leben, was published in 1940.