# Maria Orska
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{{Short description|German actress (1893–1930)}}
{{Expand German|topic=bio|Maria Orska|date=May 2010}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maria Orska
| image = Maria Orska ca 1920.jpg
| image_size = 225px
| caption = Maria Orska on promotional postcard from {{circa}} 1920.
Photographed by A. Macsigay, Hamburg. Card published by Photochemie, Berlin.
| birth_name = Rachel Blindermann
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1893|3|16|df=y}}
| birth_place = [Nikolaev](/source/Mykolaiv), Russian Empire
| death_date = {{death date and age|1930|5|16|1893|3|16|df=y}}
| death_place = [Vienna](/source/Vienna), Austria
| other_names = Maria Daisy Orska
| spouse = Hans von Bleichröder (23 January 1888 – 1938)
| relatives = Gabryela Marchesa di Serra Mantschedda and Edwin Orska
}}
'''Maria Orska''' (16 March 1893 – 16 May 1930) was an important actress of the German theater and cinema in the 1920s.
==Life==
Maria Orska was born as '''Rachel Blindermann''' in 1893, to a [Polish Jewish](/source/Polish_Jews) father Habrán Moiseyvich Blindermann, who was a lawyer and [Austrian](/source/Austrians) monther Augusta Frankfurter.[{{cite book | title = Salzburger Chronik für Stadt und Land”. | number = Nr 112 | pages = 6 | date = 1930-05-16 | url =https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=sch&datum=19300516&seite=6}}] Orska was born in a city of [Nikolaev](/source/Mykolaiv), not far from [Odessa](/source/Odessa), in the [Russian Empire](/source/Russian_Empire) (present-day Ukraine). Just before [World War I](/source/World_War_I), Maria Orska moved to [Vienna](/source/Vienna), [Hamburg](/source/Hamburg) and [Berlin](/source/Berlin) in 1915. She spoke fluently German, French, Italian, Russian and Polish.
In Berlin, Maria Orska worked with [Rudolf Bernauer](/source/Rudolf_Bernauer) in the [Hebbel Theater](/source/Hebbel_Theater), [Max Reinhardt](/source/Max_Reinhardt_(theater_director)) and was famous for her parts in theater plays by [Strindberg](/source/Strindberg), [Wedekind](/source/Frank_Wedekind) and [Pirandello](/source/Luigi_Pirandello). She also gained national popularity in Germany for her film parts, although theater was always more important to her. Her first movie ''Dämon und Mensch'' (1915) was produced by [Jules Greenbaum](/source/Jules_Greenbaum), one of the pioneers of the German cinema, who discovered cinema during his 20 years long stay in Chicago and migrated back to Germany in 1895. Most of her movies were produced by Alfred Maack, director and producer employed by Greenbaum. She was sometimes credited in films and film publicity materials as Maria Daisy Orska.
[Oskar Kokoschka](/source/Oskar_Kokoschka) drew in 1922, a famous portrait of her, now kept as a lithograph in collections of several museums. Orska married an important Jewish banker from Berlin in 12. November, 1920, Baron Hans von Bleichröder (grandson of [Gerson von Bleichröder](/source/Gerson_von_Bleichr%C3%B6der)) and took a name of '''Baroness von Bleichröder'''. They were divorced in 1925. Maria Orska's lover, a wealthy Jewish industrialist and geologist [Julius Koritschoner](/source/Julius_Koritschoner) from Vienna, shot himself in Constantinople in 1928, writing before death a letter to Orska. His [morphine](/source/morphine) addiction is thought to have made him suicidal.
Maria Orska's sister Gabryela Marchesa di Serra Mantschedda, married to an Italian aristocrat, committed suicide in 1926 by hanging herself on a curtain rope in a Berlin hotel, after a heated argument with Maria.
Her youngest brother, Edwin Orska, aviator of the Russian Empire Air Force, survived the [Bolshevik Revolution](/source/Bolshevik_Revolution) and lived in Berlin until 1937. He married in Ecuador South America in 1938. He died in Quito in 1966 at the age of 71.
Maria Orska enjoyed enormous popularity in Central Europe in the 1920s. Her stage performances at the Hebbel-Theater in the [Kreuzberg](/source/Kreuzberg) district were seen as extraordinary by the Berlin audience of that era. Her photographs appeared on covers of magazines, postcards with her portraits were distributed all over that part of the continent.
Maria Orska committed suicide in 1930, in Vienna. Some people speculate that an addiction to morphine had a decisive influence on the last years of her life.
== Filmography ==
right|thumb|200px|Maria Orska – portrait by Oskar Kokoschka, 1922
* 1915 ''Dämon und Mensch''
* 1915/1916 ''Das tanzende Herz''
* 1916 ''Die Sektwette''
* 1916 ''Der lebende Tote''
* 1916 ''Der Sumpf''
* ''[The Confessions of the Green Mask](/source/The_Confessions_of_the_Green_Mask)'' (1916)
* 1916 ''Adamants letztes Rennen''
* 1917 ''Die schwarze Loo''
* ''[The Last Hour](/source/The_Last_Hour_(1921_film)) '' (1921)
* 1920/1921 ''Die Bestie im Menschen''
* 1920/1921 ''Der Streik der Diebe''
* ''[Fridericus Rex](/source/Fridericus_Rex)'' (1922)
* 1922 ''[Opfer der Leidenschaft](/source/Opfer_der_Leidenschaft)''
* 1922/1923 ''Fridericus Rex. 3. Sanssouci''
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
== External links ==
* {{IMDb name|1335202}}
* {{cite news
|author=
|title=Tyrolese Dynamite
|date=22 February 1926
|work=[Time Magazine](/source/Time_Magazine)
|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721643,00.html
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080731033751/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721643,00.html
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=31 July 2008
|accessdate=9 August 2008
}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060906134649/http://wwii-server.history.fsu.edu/scripts/as_web5.exe?Command=Bookmark&File=Hine-Letters.ask&Name=4827%20%2d%20julius%20chapter%20chronicles Testimony about Maria Orska's lover Julius Heinrich Koritschoner and the society of artists and financiers in Vienna which Maria Orska was a part of]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070129114339/http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~law00102 Description of the Maria Orska suicide presently at Harvard University, School of Law, in Wood Detective Agency. Records, 1865–1945 ]
* [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=14089 Postcards]
* [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1335202/] IMDb
*[https://filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/2017/07/maria-orska.html?fbclid=IwAR04kSkkoH4edehB7_6CbA8eMsbWzv9IF60PNiK0wsapbnPlAJSa7c12FjA Maria Orska bio on European Film Star Postcards]
*
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orska, Maria}}
Category:German film actresses
Category:German silent film actresses
Category:German baronesses
Category:German people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:German people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Category:Actors from Mykolaiv
Category:1893 births
Category:20th-century German actresses
Category:1930 suicides
Category:1930 deaths
---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Maria Orska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Orska) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Orska?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.