Iwa Wanja

Biography

During her long life, Iwa Wanja had a very varied career, as a silent and talking pictures actress, as a professional horse rider and as a writer. Not everybody can boast so many talents, she could! Born in Karnobat, Bulgaria on 10-10-1905, she came to Berlin to perform as an actress in the German capital. She appeared on the stage first and then in the movies. She can be seen in twenty-two silent pictures, several of which with Harry Liedtke. It is again with Liedtke that she made her first talkie in 1930, Der keusche Josef (1930) . But she subsequently appeared in only seven more films, not because she was unsuccessful, but because she had many feathers in her cap. First she was a wonderful rider and with her horse Ispahan (and seven others) she won no fewer than sixty competitions in the 1930's. Then, after the second world war, she was a busy prolific playwright. In 1943, she married composer 'Nobert Schultze' and until her death at the age of 85 she lived a happy life in Berlin.