Born 1897 as Ella vel Ettel Bergner in Drohobych, Austrian-British actress Elisabeth Bergner had her career flourished in Berlin and Paris, primarily a stage actress, before she moved to London to work in films. 
Bergner’s signature role was Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never, a play written for her by Margaret Kennedy. She played Gemma, first in London and then in the Broadway debut, and in a film version for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League. She died in 1986 from cancer, in London, aged 88. Take a look at these fabulous photos to see portraits of young Elisabeth Bergner in the 1920s and 1930s.
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