Thekla Carola Wied stood in front of the camera and on stage for more than half a century before she retired into private life in autumn 2022. She has not regretted this decision so far, as she told the German Press Agency shortly before her 80th birthday (February 5th). The Munich native with the distinctive voice and infectiously cheerful laugh also revealed in the interview how she would like to spend her special day – namely with her family and without the public.
Farewell as Martha Liebermann
It was a major role in an impressive and award-winning ARD drama with which Thekla Carola Wied said goodbye to her TV audience: In “Martha Liebermann – A Stolen Life” she played the wife of the Jewish painter Max Liebermann, who wanted to live in Berlin despite the… did not leave the Nazi repressions and committed suicide shortly before being deported to a concentration camp.
This film “could certainly be the final chord of my artistic “life melody”! I consider this material, with its historical-political weight, to be so timelessly important that I am very grateful to have been involved in it,” says the actress. It is “probably a question of wisdom and life experience to determine the right time to end this long professional life after 56 years.”
“But I believe that my decision is right. There would have to be very exceptional circumstances, especially regarding the quality of a material, that could change my mind again.” And that is rather unlikely, she states.
Successes in the 80s
Wied celebrated her most popular successes in the 1980s, for example as a nun in the ZDF series “How good that Maria exists” and above all as the mother of four Angie Schumann in “I am marrying a family”. She was particularly frequently asked about the latter role on the street.
What does she think about it today? “Apparently this series touches on the life experiences and emotional situations of many people across several generations; otherwise there would be no explanation for the ongoing success of this mini-series, even in the new millennium.” Sometimes, when it is repeated, she looks at it and is happy about how realistic and unchanged the material is. Wied says she owes a lot to this role. “But of course it also created stipulations that I always resisted.”
After her first film “Trace of a Girl” (1967) – for which she received the Federal Film Prize – and especially after her role in “Collin” (1981) alongside Curt Jürgens and Armin Müller-Stahl, “I’m marrying a family “was a new challenge as a comedy.
In her later professional years, Wied was seen in smaller roles. A change that was not entirely easy, as she said in a dpa interview in 2022. She has played leading roles throughout her life, on television and in the theater. “And suddenly the ensemble roles came. Like Ilse in the “Bundschuh” films.” Wied starred in the successful ZDF series with Andrea Sawatzki and Axel Milberg until 2021.
She always wanted to be an actress
Wied was born in Breslau and grew up in Berlin. She completed her acting training in Essen at the Folkwang School. She wanted to be an actress since she was five years old. Her father in particular couldn’t do much with her career aspirations, she remembers.
“My father always just said: ‘Go ahead.’ “You’re going to pick up the horse manure in the circus someday.” That sentence was so deep and that really motivated me.” Her first theater engagements followed before she also appeared in front of the TV camera. Her father saw her on stage as Gretchen in Goethe’s “Faust”. “He came as an old, bent man. (…) Then he was so proud to see his daughter as Gretchen.”
Congratulations on your 80th birthday were received from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “Your playing, your facial expressions and your incomparable voice will remain in our memories forever.” He particularly appreciated Wied’s role as Martha Liebermann. “Your feeling for the fragility of the present and your talent and ability to show this feeling are extraordinary and convince us in this stirring drama about an exemplary fate from the darkest time in our history.” Numerous awards testify to “the great appreciation that you enjoy everywhere,” said Steinmeier.
Looking back, Thekla Carola Wied is very happy with how her career and life turned out and describes herself as “a satisfied and often even happy person.”
