Sukowa, Barbara

(1950- )

   Actress. Sukowa has enjoyed an extraordinary career that began almost as soon as she left high school. She made her professional debut in the 1971 world premiere of Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee (The Ride across Lake Constance) under Claus Peymann at the Schaubühne, a production that attracted international critical attention and engendered enormous controversy. She then departed for engagements in several theaters outside Berlin, many of them in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. Sukowa remained in Hamburg until 1980 as a member of the Thalia Theater company, but then left to work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his television miniseries filming of Alfred Döblin's epic Berlin Alexanderplatz. In it, Sukowa played the temperamental love interest of the central character Franz Biberkopf, and her performance won her several awards along with critical acclaim. She followed up that role with a stunning portrayal of the title character in Fassbinder's film Lola, based on Josef von Sternberg's 1931 Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). In 1983 Sukowa returned to the theater for Peter Zadek's 1983 production of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builderat the Bavarian State Theater. That production was subsequently invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen as one of the best productions of the year, and Theater Heute awarded Sukowa its "actress of the year" commendation for her portrayal of Hilde Wrangel.

   In 1986 Sukowa attained worldwide attention for her portrayal of the doomed revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg in Margarete von Trotta's (1942- ) film of the same name; she won the Cannes Golden Palm award for her performance, one she has never equaled in the more than 20 movies she has made since.