Rose Stradner

Biography

Pretty, soulful-eyed Austrian actress Rose Stradner was a rising 30s ingénue on the Viennese stage and in a few German film romances and musicals when MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who was in Europe searching for exotic talent, discovered her. Along with Greer Garson, Ilona Massey and Hedy Lamarr, she was brought to Hollywood and groomed as a foreign import. Unfortunately, her personal life became a shambles and eventually overwhelmed her ability to perform. She was born Rosa Luise Maria Stradner in Vienna in 1913 and educated at a convent. Her desire to become an actress came young. At 16 she studied at the Academy for Music and Art in Zurich, Switzerland, and at the age of 19, she auditioned for Max Reinhardt and handed a contract. She appeared for Austrian producer Max Reinhardt at the Volkstheater and Theater in der Josefstadt, often in the classics (Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere) but also handled modern plays (Dreiser, O'Neill). In Europe she also appeared in some German language films between 1933 and 1936. Rose, her then-husband Karl Heinz Martin, a stage director, and her mother arrived in the United States in 1936. She and her Martin divorced soon after however. Making her U.S. debut as Edward G. Robinson's put-upon wife in The Last Gangster (1937), she showed promise and was signed by MGM. Her second film Blind Alley (1939), which was more Freudian in nature, starred Chester Morris as a psychologically-disturbed mobster who abducts psychiatrist Ralph Bellamy. Rose had less to do in this picture. The budding star met well-known writer/producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at around this time and she placed her career on hold. The couple married in 1939 had two sons, Chris, born 1940, and Tom. Christopher Mankiewicz, born 1942, who went on to a successful career of his own as a screenwriter. Although Rose returned for a small but key role as a Mother Superior in her husband's film The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), her career was officially over after only three more films. In 1948 she was cast in the Edna Ferber play "Bravo!" but she had to be replaced during tryouts, which caused her severe mental strain. On a positive note, her fluency in several languages helped her husband's screenplays but the marriage was rocky almost from the start. In addition to Mankiewcz' infamous affairs with such stars as Judy Garland and Linda Darnell, Rose did not take easily to being a "hausfrau," and turned to alcohol to deaden her unhappiness. She would be known for going into emotional tirades and was eventually admitted to sanitariums to treat her violent rates. Constantly threatening suicide, a lethal mix of bitterness and depression set in and on September 27, 1958 ended her pain with an overdose of sleeping pills in the Mt. Kisco, New York, home she shared with her husband. She was only 45.