Renate Ewert

With her striking blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, Renate Ewert had the look of a classic German screen siren. She was born in Königsberg on November 9, 1933, and during WWII her family was forced to relocate to Hamburg. Determined to become an actress, she applied to the Hamburger Kammerspiele but was rejected. To break into the industry, she took on synchronising jobs for foreign movies, which finally led to her first role in the third part of 08/15 - In der Heimat (1955).

Following that debut, she appeared in a number of movies, often cast as the seductive, mysterious girl, but she never got the dramatic parts she was eager to play. She had affairs with some famous actors of the time, but these didn't help her career. By the middle of the 1960s, she didn't get many offers anymore and turned to tablets and alcohol. On December 10, 1966, she was found dead by a friend, actress Susanne Cramer, who wanted to visit her in her apartment. She had committed suicide days or even weeks earlier.

The tragedy continued within her family. In 1967, her father committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills, and later that year, her mother committed suicide by poisoning herself. Renate Ewert died on December 4, 1966, at the age of 33.