Maria Becker (28 January 1920, Berlin, Germany – 5 September 2012, Uster, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland) was a German actress and director.
After her parents, Maria Fein and Theodor Becker, divorced, Maria Becker lived with her mother in Berlin. From 1930, she visited the Kleist-Lyzeum in Berlin and the Schule am Meer on Juist, an island in Lower Saxony.[1] [2] After the National Socialists seized power in 1936, her mother, who was no longer allowed to perform at the Deutsches Theater because she was Jewish, took her to Vienna, Austria in 1936. There, Becker visited the Max Reinhardt Seminar, a drama school. After the Anschluss happened in 1938, she and her mother fled to Zürich, where she joined the Schauspielhaus Zürich. She worked there until 1965 with interruptions.[3]
After the end of World War II, she had many engagements, including in Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin and Hamburg. She founded the "Schauspieltruppe Zürich" in 1956 with Robert Freitag and Will Quadflieg, and contributed to many TV films and series.[4]
She was a member of the Academy of Arts in West Berlin from 1975 to 1993 and from 1993 to 2021 after the reunification of formerly separate East and West Berlin academies.
From 1945 to 1966, she was married to Robert Freitag, with whom she had 3 children: Oliver Tobias, Benedict, and Christopher, who committed suicide at age 20.[5]
The son Benedict was married and lived together from 1987 to 1992 with singer Nena, with whom he had 3 children.[6]