Taking leave
Actress Maria Sebaldt died
Maria Sebaldt is dead. The actress died at the age of 92. photo
© Özlem Yilmazer/dpa
Cheerful, warm, quick-witted – that’s how fans loved the actress Maria Sebaldt. Many knew her from series like “I’m Marrying a Family” and “The Wicherts Next Door”.
In the 1980s, Maria Sebaldt was the face of German feel-good television. As the exalted Bille in the ZDF series “I marry a family” (1983-1986), she paired up the single parent Angi (Thekla Carola Wied) with the bachelor Werner, but herself suffered from the amorousness of her unfaithful husband Alfons.
In “The Wicherts from next door” (ZDF, 1986-1991) she led a more or less idyllic family life in West Berlin as Hannelore with her husband and two sons. It was above all her comic talent that inspired the actress. Sebaldt died near Munich at the age of 92. The burial has already taken place, as the ZDF announced. The “Bild” newspaper reported first.
Quick-witted Berliner with heart
Sebaldt was sincere, humorous and quick-witted, just like the proverbial “Berlin plant” that she was. She was born on April 26, 1930 in the Steglitz district. She came into contact with art early on through her father. He was a portrait painter and flautist and began working for Paramount Film AG after World War II.
However, the childhood of the actress was marked by the war. Her father and her two brothers were drafted, she and her mother fled to Thuringia. “After Berlin was bombed out three times and my father was drafted into the Volkssturm, he said: ‘Out, out, out with you from Berlin,'” she recalled on the occasion of her 80th birthday in 2010.
It was difficult for little Maria, as she had to change schools many times before she was finally able to graduate and start her long-awaited acting training.
Start of the theater career
Her first engagement took Sebaldt from Thuringia to the Hebbel Theater in Berlin in 1950. Many stage appearances followed, for example at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm and at comedies in Berlin and Munich. In 1969 she toured North America for three months with the Zurich drama troupe.
But she owed her real fame to film and television. In 1959, Sebaldt stood in front of the camera alongside stars such as Lil Dagover and Liselotte Pulver for the two-part series “Die Buddenbrooks” based on the novel by Thomas Mann. She especially liked to act in comedies, including “Three Men on a Horse” or “Charley’s Aunt”.
After the birth of her daughter Katharina in 1967, Sebaldt stepped back a little, but still took on many roles, especially in ZDF crime series such as “Der Kommissar”, “Derrick” or “Der Alte”.
Then came the 1980s and with them the series, which attracted millions of viewers to watch TV with their mixture of bourgeois-bourgeois comfort, everyday drama and situation comedy: “I’m Marrying a Family”, “The Wicherts Next Door” and – with a touch of big, wide world and luxury – “The dream ship”.
Her motto in life: “More being instead of appearances”
Prominently right in the middle: Sebaldt, who was not impressed by her successes. In 2010 she described her motto in life as “more reality instead of appearances”. “I make sure to be honest with myself and others.” She also had no problem turning down roles she didn’t like. She wants to play “real people”, not constructed characters.
Her relationship with her husband, director Robert Freitag, was particularly close to her heart. “I can only do all this one hundred percent because I really have a very happy marriage,” Sebaldt confessed about 13 years ago, a few months before her husband’s death. She found solace in her daughter and grandson, with whom she lived for many years in a house in the Munich suburb of Grünwald.
Just three years ago, Sebaldt was satisfied and optimistic and explained in an interview: “I’ve stayed young at heart! I don’t feel old, my life has always been positive.”
Agency page Maria Sebaldt