{{Short description|Austrian actress and artistic director (1900–1971)}} {{more citations needed|date=September 2016}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}} {{Infobox person | image = File:Fotothek df Pk 89.jpg | caption = Weigel in 1967, as "Mother" in Bertolt Brecht's play ''The Mother'' | birth_name = Helene Weigel | birth_date = {{birth date|1900|05|12|df=y}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austria-Hungary | death_date = {{death date and age|1971|05|06|1900|05|12|df=y}} | death_place = East Berlin, East Germany | resting_place = Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, East Berlin, East Germany | spouse = {{marriage|Bertolt Brecht|1930|1956|end=died}} | children = 2 | occupation = {{flat list| *Actress *Artistic director }} }}
'''Helene Weigel''' ({{IPA|de|heˈleːnə ˈvaɪɡl̩|lang|De-Helene Weigel.ogg}}; 12 May 1900{{spaced ndash}}6 May 1971)<ref name="jwa" /> was an Austrian actress and artistic director.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba5ecdeea|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411070754/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba5ecdeea|url-status=dead|archive-date=11 April 2020|title=Helene Weigel|website=BFI}}</ref> She was the second and last wife of Bertolt Brecht until his death in 1956; together they had two children.
==Personal life== Weigel was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the daughter of Leopoldine (née Pollak) and Siegfried Weigel, an accountant-general in a textile factory.<ref name="jwa" /> Her family was Jewish.<ref name="jwa">{{cite web | url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weigel-helene |title=Helene Weigel | Jewish Women's Archive| publisher=Jwa.org |access-date=1 January 2013}}</ref> She and husband Brecht had two children, Stefan Brecht and Barbara Brecht-Schall. Weigel was a Communist Party member from 1930.<ref name="jwa" />
==Career== Weigel became the artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble on 16 February 1949.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} She is best remembered for creating several Brecht roles, including: Pelagea Vlassova, ''The Mother'' of 1932; ''Antigone'' in Brecht's version of the Greek tragedy; the title role in his civil war play, ''Señora Carrar's Rifles''; and the iconic ''Mother Courage''.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}
Between 1933 and 1947, as a refugee from Adolf Hitler's Germany, she was seldom able to pursue her acting craft, even during the family's six-year period in Los Angeles.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} It was only with the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble in East Germany in 1949 that Brecht's theatre began to be recognized worldwide.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} She died in 1971, still at the helm of the company, and many of the roles that she created with Brecht are still in the theatre's repertoire today.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}
==Death== thumb|East German commemorative stamp for Helene Weigel Weigel died in East Berlin on 6 May 1971, six days before her 71st birthday.<ref name="jwa" />
==Notable understudies== * Ingrid Pitt, British-Polish actress
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category}} *[http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/ Berliner Ensemble] *Jennifer Marston Willia, [http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weigel-helene Biography of Helene Weigel], Jewish Women Encyclopedia *{{IMDb name|0917832}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Weigel, Helene}} Category:1900 births Category:1971 deaths Category:Actresses from Vienna Category:20th-century Austrian Jews Category:Austrian emigrants to Germany Category:Communist Party of Germany politicians Category:Jewish socialists Category:Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians Category:Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Category:Cultural Association of the GDR members Category:East German women in politics Category:20th-century Austrian actresses Category:Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Category:Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany Category:Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold Category:Family of Bertolt Brecht Category:Burials at the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery