Michaela May has been an integral part of the German television family since the 1970s. On March 18th she celebrates her 70th birthday.
Honest, cheerful, down to earth, smart about life. These are the qualities that one associates with Michaela May. There are consistently reliable sympathy values that the audience has for the actress and that have established her in the top ranks of TV stars for decades. On March 18th she celebrates her 70th birthday.
Born in Munich, she appeared on stage for the first time at the age of ten in a ballet piece. Her name was still Gertraud Mittermayr. Two years later, she made her screen debut in the feature film “Onkel Toms Hütte”, a supporting role alongside then-star OW Fischer (1915-2004). Appearances in a “Jerry Cotton” and in the three-part crime thriller “Flucht ohne Ausweg” (1967) followed, and in 1970 he had his first stage role in the comedy on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin.
“Gertraud was too Germanic for me”
Then she changed her name because “I’ve never liked Gertraud anyway, that was too Germanic for me”, she said according to “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” once. “Gertraud means javelin thrower, I didn’t like that meaning at all.” And Mittermayr didn’t work either, “back then there were famous female skiers who were called Heidi, Evi or Rosi Mittermaier”.
This is how the stage name Michaela May was born, which she quickly internalized. “But you have to work with this name for two years before the new name is also protected at the residents’ registration office and you can sign with it.” Her mother also called her Michaela.
So it all boiled down to a career as an actress. Nevertheless, she wanted to learn “something decent” and, after graduating from high school, initially trained as a kindergarten teacher. She also took acting lessons.
In the end, chance took over. She was on a trip through Africa when a certain Helmut Dietl (1944-2015) offered her to play one of the leading female roles in his evening series “Munich Stories”. She declined. When she had to break off the Africa trip because of a vehicle breakdown, she met Dietl – and agreed anyway.
Breakthrough with the “Munich Stories”
It was lucky. From 1974, Michaela May played Susi Hillermeier, the enchanting fiancée of the series hero Tscharli Häusler (Günther Maria Halmer), alongside the great theater star Therese Giehse (1898-1975) in nine episodes. This Susi was the daughter of an innkeeper, a sexy, dark-haired beauty who often tried in vain to lead her Tscharli to the right path together. The real Michaela May was by his own admission “Rather a rock bride. I used to have a crush on a drummer, went around Munich with his beat band or toured through Upper Bavaria, a bit like a groupie”.
The “Munich Stories” became a huge success and established Helmut Dietl’s reputation as a cult director. And Michaela May became a sought-after actress who could choose her roles.
In my private life, too, everything went well. In 1980 she married the commercial lawyer Dr. Jack Schiffer, her daughters Alexandra and Lilian were born in 1982 and 1988, respectively, and the family lived in a villa in Munich’s posh Nymphenburg district, befitting their status. The public, and therefore her audience, perceived the actress’ surroundings as a perfect aura, shielded from all the adversities of life. Nobody outside the family suspected of the strokes of fate that befell a lucky Michaela May.
Heavy blows of fate
Her three siblings killed each other, all three had suffered from severe depression. In 1974, her brother Karl took his own life at the age of 28. In 1977, the eldest brother Hans died at the age of 34, and in 1980 her younger sister Gundi died by suicide at the age of 22, the actress reports in her current biography “Hinter dem Lachen” (Piper, 22 euros).
Michaela May has been silent about these tragedies for almost 40 years. “I protected the secret to protect my parents”, she said to the “Gala”. Not talking publicly about the death of the siblings protected her, she explained may “picture”. “When my sister was buried, I was pregnant with my eldest daughter. I couldn’t go to the grave then.”
With her mother, who died two years ago at the age of 97, she was never able and did not want to talk about her brothers and sisters dying. “But with the death of my mother, the umbilical cord broke, the bondage came loose, and I can look back.” In her autobiography, she tried to take stock of her life and work through the bad events. The book was like therapy for her.
Another dramatic phase in her life was the end of her first marriage. It happened around 2003, Michaela May had started filming “Police call 110: Our Father”, where she played another cult role for years alongside the one-armed chief investigator Jürgen Tauber (Edgar Selge) with the self-confident chief inspector Jo Obermaier. Directed by Bernd Schadewald (71).
Second marriage: “I was so overwhelmed”
During the recordings, she fell in love with the director, who was two years her senior and also married, so much that as the women’s magazine “Brigitte” wrote“gave up everything for him – a man with whom she had raised her children together, a marriage in which she was well taken care of, the role of the middle-class, successful actress, whose life had hitherto been smooth and had no corners or crises” .
She herself said: “It hit me like nothing has ever hit me before.” After divorcing Jack Schiffer, she married Schadewald on the Greek island of Symi in 2006. Looking back, she said “Bild”: “Separations are never easy. But we have our difficult years behind us. If you take your time and the injuries are scarred, then it works.”
Everyone celebrated last Christmas together. Michaela May with her husband Bernd Schadewald and ex-husband Jack Schiffer in his Munich apartment. With the daughters Alexandra and Lilian and the grandchildren. It’s actually a logical coincidence, because the actress says: “You once loved each other. The children are a product of this love and our link that unites us. Life is so short, you have to break down barriers.”