Ruth Landshoff

Ruth Landshoff-Yorck (born Ruth Levy, 7 January 1904 – 19 January 1966) was a German-American actress and writer. Life and career She was born in 1904 in Berlin as Ruth Levy to engineer Edward Levy and opera singer Else Landshoff. She came from a middle class Jewish family and grew up in Berlin. Her uncle was the publisher Samuel Fischer. During the Weimar Republic Berlin became the intellectual and artistic centre of Europe. Landshoff counted among her friends Ernst Toller, Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein. One of her close friends in Berlin was Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach. She enjoyed a privileged lifestyle in Berlin and frequented the many gay bars. She would dress as a man and appeared in public as her alter ego René. Landshoff appeared in several avant-garde films before she trained as an actress. Landshoff appeared as Ruth in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's landmark silent film Nosferatu in 1922. In the same year she made a brief appearance in The Search (Die Gezeichneten) by Carl Theodor Dreyer. After attending Reinhardt's acting school, Landshoff turned to stage acting. She made appearances in Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna before giving up acting.