Karin Ugowski
Karin Ugowski is a German film and theater actress, voice actress, narrator, film producer and furtherer of art with various stations of work in UK, US, France, Italy, Israel, Spain and many other countries and of course Germany. Due to her visually striking and very specific face type at her advanced age, the actress, who was previously often rather classified as "pretty blonde", has recently been reviewed for her character strong appearance in the Academy Award nominated international motion picture Foxtrot (2017) as the mother of the protagonist, who is suffering dementia.
During her acting studies she already became known to a broader audience for her remarkable brisk and cheerful impersonations of the princess roles in German classic motion pictures in the early 1960's based on historical fairy-tales, like Mother Holly (1963), Die Goldene Gans (1964) (engl. "The Golden Goose") and King Thrushbeard (1965) co-starring German cult actor 'Manfred Krug' when she was still very young. Her first cinema appearances were heavily related to an ideal of female youth and beauty in the 1960's in Germany while she mostly appealed shy but self-confident in these roles. In this time she already became an up-and-coming film star and build a great fan base, which still remains until today for these old film classics, which are still airing in German TV frequently.
In very early Science Fiction motion pictures like Signale - Ein Weltraumabenteuer (1970) (engl. "Signals") and historical feature films like the spy thriller Das Unsichtbare Visier (1973) (engl. "The Invisible Visor") which has already achieved cult status, co-starring the young Armin Mueller-Stahl, or as malicious white farmers daughter in the German film version of the American indian legend story Osceola (1971) or even in first episodes of the German TV classic crime series "Polizeiruf 110" (1971), where she appears as one of the first officiating female police detectives and inspectors besides Sigrid Göhler in German TV, she has confused her princess role fan base by exposing as character actress of complex parts and by showing many different faces in the 1970's, what still remains over the decades. More than once she has shown her versatility and adaptivity, like in the cinema short film "Open" (2006) of the director Charlotte Siebenrock later again, when she turned from an old frustrated canteen kitchen porter into an attractive buoyant and beautiful looking women within minutes.
Already during her first film work she fell in love with theater, especially the experimental and political theater, which was able to change something in the time of upheaval in Germany. As a permanent member of the theater ensemble of the Volksbuehne Berlin, she worked early with great personalities such as Benno Besson, Heiner Müller and later Frank Castorf, Kresnik, Haussmann, Christoph Schlingensief and other Berlin theater-greats with guest performances all over the world.
The actress, who has frequently campaigned for art and culture development and events in Northern Germany in the last decades and has carried a yearly exhibition festival with her husband, the painter and graphic artist Guenter Horn, to support graphic artists in this area, became a talking point recently again by participating in a supporting role as mother of the lead in Samuel Maoz's latest international motion picture Foxtrot (2017), a sequel of his award-winning motion picture Lebanon (2009), started screening in Cannes and the Viennale 2017/18 and won multiple international film awards.
In all, the actress was involved in over 80 theater productions and over 150 film and television productions. Politically, Karin Ugowski has been always considered as system-critical at any time, which is mirrored in her commitment for political theater and various readings. Since 2006, Karin Ugowski is an active member of the German Film Academy which builds the jury for the German film award (LOLA).
Personal life:
Karin Ugowski has cultivated a long-term friendship with writer, play wright and novelist Peter Brasch, who frequently tried to get in touch with her and has dedicated a book of poetry to her and who wrote "The Golden Goose - an audio drama adaptation" in 1989 inspired by her role of princess Roswitha in the classic movie. He died 2001 and is the brother of the also well-known author and director Thomas Brasch.
Her public last name Ugowski is not her birth name and remains from the marriage with her first husband in the time when she came to be known for her first leading motion picture appearances in the 1960's. In this era it was common to marry the one you love soon, and often still very young. In this time her beloved first son Joerg Ugowski was born. After the divorce she kept the name regarding her work as actress and the name recognition in the public.
In the 1970's she fell in love again, leading to a lifelong relationship with the actor and well-known theater director Helmut Straßburger (who recently died in 2010) she met while working on theater stagings with him in Berlin. In this time her beloved second son, novelist, essayist, play wright, theater/film director & composer Sebastian Ugovsky-Strassburger was born.
Since 1993 she's married to the graphic artist and painter Günter Horn.
(Source: IMDb)
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