Mosheim, Grete

(1905-1986)

   Actress. Mosheim was the kind of Jewish actress, according to critic Joachim Kaiser, of which the German theater at one time could boast a full supply, "small in body but with an unmatched fullness of experience. In Mosheim one sensed a mixture of Jewish self-confidence, Potsdam, cultural worldliness, plus a melange of naivété and realism all mixed in together" (Kaiser, Süddeutsche Zeitung [Munich], 31 December 1986). Mosheim made her debut with Max Reinhardt in 1928 as an ingenue, a type she continued to play as Gretchen in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion until forced to leave Germany in 1933. She emigrated first to Switzerland, then to London, and finally settled in New York with her husband. Mosheim returned to Berlin triumphantly in 1952 in John van Druten's IAm a Camera at the Schlosspark Theater. She remained based in New York for the rest of her career, though she usually appeared in one German production a year. Among her biggest roles were Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (1956); Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days (1961); Claire Zachanassian in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame (The Visit, 1962); Hannah in Tennessee Williams's Night of the Iguana (1962); Aunt Abby in several German, Swiss, and Austrian productions of Joseph Kessel-ring's Arsenic and Old Lace; and the Widow in Edward Albee's All Over (1972).