Toronto Star (29/Jan/1986) - Actress-author Lilli Palmer dead
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- article: Actress-author Lilli Palmer dead
- newspaper: Toronto Star (29/Jan/1986)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Lilli Palmer, Secret Agent (1936)
Article
Actress-author Lilli Palmer dead
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actress-author Lilli Palmer, a star of the television mini-series Peter The Great and former wife of actor Rex Harrison, has died at the age of 71.
Miss Palmer died in her Los Angeles home Monday, said Dick Fisher, a spokesman for the Forest Lawn mortuary. She had been ill, but Louis Bershad at Century Artists in Los Angeles said he did not have details of her illness.
She appeared in more than 50 movies with stars such as Harrison (she married him), Fred Astaire, the late William Holden and Clark Gable.
Miss Palmer is perhaps best known in North America, however, for her appearances in Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent in 1936, The Four Poster in 1952, The Counterfeit Traitor in 1962 and The Boys From Brazil in 1978.
The green-eyed actress was born in Posen, Germany, the daughter of a surgeon and an Austrian actress, and she made her stage debut in Berlin in 1932.
On Sunday night she will appear as Natalya, mother of Czar Peter the Great of Russia, in the NBC-TV mini-series of the same name. The series (on Channels 2 and 11 at 9 p.m. for Toronto-area viewers) runs through Feb. 5.
She is survived by her husband, Carlos Thompson. Services will be private, Fisher said.
Fled to Paris
Miss Palmer, the table tennis champion of Germany at age 15, attended the Ilka Gurening dramatic school before her debut at 18 in Die eiserne Jungfrau.
After the Nazis took power, she fled to Paris where she appeared in an operetta at the Moulin Rouge.
She made her screen debut in London in 1935. Her British movies included Secret Agent, The Man With 1,000 Faces, A Girl Must Live, Thunder Rock, The Gentle Sex, English Without Tears, Rake's Progress and Beware Of Pity.
She was touring England with the stage company of You Of All People when she met Harrison at a restaurant in Birmingham in November 1939.
She was reportedly angry at Harrison because his play was hurting hers at the Birmingham box office. He arranged an introduction and their relationship flourished.
The couple was married in January 1943 and in 1944 had a son, Carey.
Wrote five novels
In her autobiography, Change Lobsters And Dance, she described how the amorous affairs of Sexy Rex ended her marriage.
She married Thompson, a writer and actor from Argentina, in 1957.
In addition to her autobiography, Miss Palmer wrote at least five novels, some of them best sellers.
"I have made more money with my books than with all my movies," she said in a 1984 interview.
She liked to paint more than write.
"It gives me real sensual pleasure, but it is also a battle," she said during that interview.
