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Early Life And Education : Zarah Leander Essay

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Early Life and Education Zarah Leander was born as Zarah Stina Hedberg in Karlstad, Sweden on March 15, 1907 (Koepnick, 2002). Leander was a famous actress and singer of Nazi Germany during the Third Reich (Ascheid, 1999). Early on, Leander began her career in Sweden as an actress in both films and staged acts (Lunde, 2011). According to Ascheid (2003), Leander also was a recording artist that had songs in many different languages such as in French and in her native language, Swedish. Although Leander was in the film and music industry, she was not very well known beyond the proxemics of her homeland in Sweden (Ascheid, 1999). In 1936, Leander was first discovered by the German film industry for her staged musical role in Axel an der Himmerlstür, which took place in Vienna (Ascheid, 1999). This was Leander’s first German language role (Acheid, 1999). The German film industry was in search for a female icon that could replace Marlene Dietrich for her lack of role as a diva (Ascheid, 1999). Leander was viewed as a remarkable woman, who had the capacity to appear dangerously seductive while still remaining pure and innocent (Ascheid, 1999). Although Leander was not German, her double-image persona aligned with Nazi ideologies. In 1936, Leander was then signed off for a contract of three films by the German film industry, Ufa (Ascheid, 1999). She was also offered a reward of 200,000 Reichsmark (Ascheid, 1999). Leander’s first project with Ufa was for a film called Zu Neuen

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