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Helene Odilon


Foto: Wilhelm Förster (1842-1918)

1863 - 1939

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The actress Helene Odilon was born as Helene Petermann in Dresden.
 
She began her theater career in Chemnitz, later followed engagements in Berlin and Vienna.
 
She soon became a successful stage actress and was very popular at thtat time. This even led to tours through England and the USA.
 
She only appeared once in front of the camera for the production "Nach der Premiere" (14) at the side of Richard Grossmann and Eugenie Werner.
 
Her private life was worthy of making a movie as well.
She was married with the actor Alexander Girardi who was very jealous but also had every reasons for it.
Helene Odilon finally managed together with her friend the psychiatrist Julius Wanger-Jauregg to admit Alexander Girardi into an insane asylum.
Only thanks the help of the actress Katharina Schratt Alexander Girardi became rehabilitated later.
 
Many years later Helene Odilon befell a similar fate. After a stroke in 1903 she was partially paralyzed and she suffered from depression.
Thereupon some of her relatives induced that Helene Odilon was warded in order to protect her fortune. Odilon had to fight against this decision for several years.
 
In 1916 she went blind and her environment utilized the situation and embezzled her fortune. Helene Odilon became pauperised and lived in a rest home - she was not even 60 years old.
 
In 1925 she came to a hospice in Dresden and from 1928 she lived in the new opened Badener rest home where she died eleven years later.

 
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