Baarova, Lida (1914-2000)

Baarova, Lida

ACTOR (CZECHOSLOVAKIA)

BORN 7 Sep 1914, Praha - DIED 27 Oct 2000, Salzburg: Itzling
BIRTH NAME Babkova, Ludmilla
CAUSE OF DEATH parkinson's disease
GRAVE LOCATION Praha: Strasnice Crematorium, Vinohradská (ashes)

Lida Baarova studied acting at the conservatory in Prague. Her mother and her sister Zoeka Janu were actressed as well. Lida was seventeen years old when she had her first movie part. She was regarded by many people as the most beautiful women they had ever seen. She had a love affair with the Czech director Karl Lamac. She was engaged at the National Theatre in Prague until she was contracted by UFA and went to Berlin 1934.

In Berlin she started a relationship with the actor Gustav Fröhlich and after they were engaged they moved to the Schwanenwerder peninsula where Joseph Goebbels lived as well. At the set of the movie "Baracole" she met Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels fell for her immediately and she became his lover in 1936. In 1938 Goebbel's wife complained with Hitler and asked permission to divorce Goebbels. Hitler refused and oredered Goebbels to leave Lida. Lida was forced to leave Germany and went to Italy. There she appeared in several movies.

When the Americans occupied Italy she returned to Prague, where she dated Hans Albers. When she left Prague to join Albers in Bavaria she was arrested by the American military police. She was extradited to Czechoslovakia where she avoided a death sentence by proving that she worked in Germany before the war. In prison she was often visited by Jan Kopecký and he used his political contacts to obtain her release after one and a half year. They married in 1949 and escaped to Austria. Kopecký emigrated to Argentina and left Lida behind in Austria where she stayed in the the sanatorium of Dr. Lundwall.

She tried to make a comeback, but after Anton Walbrook refused to appear in a movie with her, she left for Argentina. There she lived in poverty, before she returned to Italy. In 1953 she appeared in Fellini´s "I Vitelloni". In 1956 she divorced Kopecký and she moved to Salzburg in in 1958. She married Lundwell, who was twenty years her senior and after his death she continued to live at his propery in Salzburg. She published an autobiography and a movie, "Lída Baarová's Bittersweet Memories" (1996).

Related persons
• was the lover of Fröhlich, Gustav
• is brother/sister of Janu, Zorka

Images
The grave of Lida Baarova and Zorka Janu at the Strasnice Crematorium, Prague. Picture by Androom (12 Aug 2019)	Movie poster for "Jsem devce s certem v tele" (1933) featuring Lida Baarova. Picture by Androom (13 Aug 2019)