Marthe Keller

An exotic international leading lady, the beautiful Marthe Keller originally harbored dreams of a career as a ballerina. A skiing accident at age 16 dashed those hopes but she found a creative outlet in acting. After studying philosophy and sociology at university in Frankfurt, Germany, the Swiss-born Keller trained for the stage at Munich's Stanislavsky School and Berlin's Brecht Theatre School. She honed her craft in several German TV productions and on stage with the Heidelberg Repertory Company and the Schiller Theatre in Berlin. By 1968, Keller had moved to France where she quickly established her screen reputation in two Philippe de Broca films, "Le Diable pour le queue/The Devil By the Tail" (1968) and "Caprice de Marie/Give Her the Moon" (1969). Solidifying her reputation as a versatile and gifted performer was her turn as three generations in the same family in Claude Lelouch's "Toute une vie/And Now My Love" (1974).