Evi Rauer

Evi Rauer (29 October 1915 – 17 September 2004) was an Estonian stage, film and television actress and television director whose career spanned more than sixty years. Early life Evi Rauer was born in Tallinn to Kustav Rauer, who was an Estonian champion wrestler, and Johanna Katariina Rauer (née Wisel). She spent most summers with family in Haimre, Märjamaa Parish, Rapla County. At age four, her mother was diagnosed with a severe lung ailment and died a year later. Her father would later remarry and emigrate to Sweden following the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940. She attended schools in Tallinn, graduating from the Elfriede Lender Girls' Private Gymnasium in 1935. From 1936 until 1939, she studied acting at the Tallinn Töölisteater. Stage career Shortly after graduation in 1939, she became engaged as an actress at the Ugala theatre in Viljandi. She would leave the Ugala in 1942, but return for engagements from 1945 until 1952 and again, from 1969 until 1973. From 1942 until 1945, she was engaged at the Endla Theatre in Pärnu, and from 1952 to 1958 at the Tallinn National Drama Theatre (now, the Estonian Drama Theatre). During her years on the stages of Estonian theatres, she would appear in notable productions of works by: Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, Hella Wuolijoki, Aleksei Arbuzov, A. H. Tammsaare, August Mälk, Alexander Ostrovsky, August Kitzberg, Oskar Luts and Anton Chekhov, among others. Film career In 1951, Rauer made her film debut as Roosi in the Herbert Rappaport directed drama Valgus Koordis for Lenfilm. The film is notable as being the second Estonian feature film made following the annexation of the country by the Soviet Union (the first being 1947's Elu tsitadellis), and starring Estonian singer Georg Ots. The plot of Valgus Koordis follows the struggle of a small village to set up a collective farm after the end of World War II. The film was based on a story of the same name by author Hans Leberecht.