Was 92 years old

Actress Ruth Maria Kubitschek has died

Ruth Maria Kubitschek has died. The popular actress was 92 years old.

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Rainer Unkel)

Mourning for actress Ruth Maria Kubitschek is dead. According to a spokeswoman, she died on Saturday in Switzerland at the age of 92. "The grande dame of German film and television acting quietly bid farewell to life in her adopted home of Switzerland after a short, serious illness," it said on Sunday.

She died in a hospital, her spokeswoman Yvonne von Stempel told dpa. Her last words were: "The earth gave me a wonderful home in this world. It is with deep gratitude that I move on to the other world. It exists, you can believe me." The funeral service will take place in the closest family circle.

Achieved cult status as "Spatzl"
Ruth Maria Kubitschek left her mark on German-language television for many years. She was on board the ZDF "Traumschiff", starred in the ARD "Tatort" and in the series "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs".

Kubitschek achieved cult status alongside Helmut Fischer as Annette von Soettingen, alias "Spatzl", in the TV series "Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz". 

Ruth Maria Kubitschek and Helmut Fischer

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Istvan Bajzat / dpa)

Lived in seclusion in Switzerland
The popular actress lived in Switzerland for more than 25 years. She painted, gardened and enjoyed her private life - in which she did not want to be disturbed, even on the occasion of her 90th birthday. "I no longer give interviews, not a single one," she made clear in a brief telephone conversation with dpa two years ago. 

Training as an actress against her parents' wishes
Ruth Maria Kubitschek was born in 1931 in Komotau (now the Czech Republic) on the edge of the Ore Mountains. Towards the end of the Second World War, the family fled to Saxony-Anhalt.

Ruth Maria pushed through her urge to go on stage against her parents' wishes. After attending drama schools in Halle and Weimar, she made her debut as Fina in Brecht's "Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti" in Halle. Within a few years, she became a star of GDR television and DEFA films.

Ruth Maria Kubitschek in 1968 as Helena in "The Trojan Women of Euripides"

(Bild: APA/dpa/Georg Göbel)

"Wanted to play other roles"
But the young woman wanted more. "I went to all the cultural authorities and explained that I wanted to play other roles than were possible in this country," she reported in an interview with Die Welt. She was repeatedly denied this. In 1959, she went to the West with her son. Her husband, the opera and theater director Götz Friedrich, stayed in the GDR, but was also allowed to direct in the West.

Kubitschek's West German career began at the Schlosstheater in Celle. She was supported by the great Austrian theater man Fritz Kortner.

Ruth Maria Kubitschek retired from acting in 2013 and was only rarely seen in public after that - as here at the "Advent Festival of 100,000 Lights" in 2015.

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Sebastian Gabsch / dpa Picture Alliance)

This was soon followed by roles in television productions - appearances in "Lysistrata" (1961), "Die Powenzbande" (1973) and the title role in "Melissa" (1966). Her role as "Spatzl" in the ARD cult series "Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz", directed by Helmut Dietl, remains unforgotten. The way she generously forgave her busy TV husband Franz Münchinger (played by Helmut Fischer) for every escapade is one of the most amusing chapters in German TV history.

In the cult series "Kir Royal"
In 1985, she also filmed the cult series "Kir Royal" with Dietl, in which the Munich chic crowd was deliciously poked fun at.

Until she retired in 2014, Kubitschek was a regular on television - ratings hits such as "Freunde fürs Leben", "Katrin ist die Beste", "Teuflisch starke Frauen" and "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs" underpinned her popularity. In 2013, she played her last role in the feature film "Frau Ella".

Switzerland as her adopted home
But Kubitschek never got bored away from the stage and camera. On the contrary. She was a passionate gardener and painter as well as a talented novelist and non-fiction author ("Im Fluss des Lebens" and "Anmutig älter werden").

Painting has always been one of Ruth Maria Kubitschek's passions.

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Istvan Bajzat / dpa)

She has lived in her adopted home of Switzerland for more than 25 years and became a naturalized citizen in 2013. "Since I have my garden here, I also have a piece of Swiss soil," she once said and confessed: "I really feel at home here, I now tick like the Swiss."