Film world: She was Princess Thousand Beautiful: Christel Bodenstein is dead

She became known as an East German fairytale princess: The actress Christel Bodenstein is dead. She died on December 5th at the age of 86 in a Berlin nursing home, a spokeswoman for the DEFA Foundation said. “She hasn’t been feeling well for a while.” She had been quiet lately. Bodenstein, born in 1938 and born in Munich, is best known for the DEFA fairy tale film “The Singing Sounding Tree”.

In 1957, the 18-year-old played her way into the hearts of the audience as the evil and defiant Princess Thousand Beautiful with a pouty face. She was discovered at the age of 17 by director Kurt Maetzig (“The Rabbit is Me”). Shortly afterwards she played in “The Captain of Cologne” and then a princess – in the fairy tale adaptation “The Brave Little Tailor”.

While she was still studying at the Babelsberg Film School, she appeared in front of the camera several times for DEFA. In 1963 she got “her dream role”, as she once confessed, alongside Manfred Krug, as the FDJ secretary in “Description of a Summer”.

“The Little Prince” was her favorite film

The attractive brunette married the director Konrad Wolf (“I was nineteen”), but only filmed with her husband once: in 1966, “The Little Prince” based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was made. The work was shown once on GDR television and was never allowed to be shown publicly again because of unclear rights. This film was particularly close to Bodenstein’s heart, reported the spokeswoman for the DEFA Foundation. When the foundation restored it a few years ago, “they were very happy.”

Bodenstein played at the Maxim Gorki Theater and for television, after reunification alongside Mario Adorf and Gudrun Landgrebe, among others, was then an assistant director at Berlin’s Friedrichstadtpalast and wrote a revue at the end of her career. Her last film role dates back to 2016 in the remake of the fairy tale with which many fans associate her – but as a herb woman.