About Hildegard Knef
Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (German: [ˈhɪldəɡaʁt ˈkneːf]; 28 December 1925 – 1 February 2002) was a German actress, singer, voice actress and writer. While she was known in the German-speaking countries as Hildegard Knef, she became known (much to her dislike) from 1948 to ca. 1968 outside the German-speaking world as Hildegard Neff. In 1950 she became a US citizen and then in 2001 renewed her German citizenship. Knef began her acting career at the end of World War II in Berlin and became a screen star soon afterward through her involvement with films like Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns (Murderers Among Us) (1946) and Film Ohne Titel (Film Without A Title) (1948). She also played the lead role in the controversial, partially censored melodrama Die Sünderin (The Sinner) (1950), and was attracted by offers of international roles in the 1950s. She played the lead role in a Broadway musical (Silk Stockings by Cole Porter) in New York. From the 1960s on, she built her career in Germany as a pop-singer and author of books (in particular her memoirs titled Der Geschenkte Gaul (The Gift Horse). When the film Träumerei was made in 1944, Knef shot some scenes, which would have marked her film debut, but these were left out of the final cut. She was billed in some English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff. Her parents were Hans Theodor and Friede Augustine Knef.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.