Austrian film legend turns 105

Austria's first film star, Liane Haid, celebrated her 105th birthday on Wednesday at her home near the Swiss capital, Berne. The star of 90 films, Haid is the oldest world-renowned film star still living.

Liane Haid is more than a film legend; she is as old as the medium itself and retired in 1942.

Today, she doesn’t get out much, and her eyesight and hearing is not as good as it once was, but her son, musician Pierre Spycher-Haid, says she’s doing well at home in Wabern. .

Haid doesn’t have any recipe for living a long life, according to her son. She says she always made sure she got plenty of sleep and ate well, but beyond that she has no insights into the secrets of longevity.

At 105, Haid can look back with satisfaction on a very eventful life. She gave up acting 58 years ago, but at 80 still felt fit enough to hold a show in a disco in Lanzarotte.

Born in Vienna, her career began as a child, when she started performing on stage. By the end of the First World War, she had moved into films, but it was not until 1921 that her career took off. She was cast as the lead in the historical film “Lady Hamilton” opposite Conrad Veidt’s Admiral Nelson.

A year later, she played Lucrezia Borgia, again opposite Veidt, and went on to star in a string of silent films in the 1920s.

Unlike many stars of silent films, Haid had little difficulty adapting to the “talkies” – during the 1930s she starred in more than 30 films, opposite stars such as Willy Forst.

Later that decade she fled to England because of what her son, Pierre, said were problems with the Nazis. She learned English during her stay and by the end had mastered the language well enough to be given some roles in English language films.

Torn between trying her luck in Hollywood or moving back to the German-speaking world, she chose Berlin – a decision, according to Pierre, partly driven by a fear that she would fail to woo American audiences.

In 1942, she and Pierre left Berlin to settle in Switzerland. It was while she was undergoing surgery for a throat problem, in the Italian speaking canton of Ticino, that she met her third husband, a Swiss doctor called Carl Spycher.

Haid’s move to Switzerland coincided with the end of her film career. By that stage, she was in her late 40s, and according to Pierre was reluctant to accept roles which cast her as a motherly figure.

She has been the recipient of a German film prize, “for dedicated and outstanding services to German cinema”, and in 1992 was awarded the “Rosenkügel”, a top Austrian film award.

swissinfo with agencies