Dolly Haas

Dolly Haas, born Dorothy Clara Louise Haas on 29 April 1910 in Hamburg, Germany, was a German-American actress and singer whose career spanned German and American film, Broadway, and the stage. She died on 16 September 1994 in New York City from ovarian cancer at the age of 84.

Haas was the daughter of Charles Oswald Haas, a bookseller of British-German origin who had grown up in England and held British citizenship, and Margarethe, née Jagemann. She and her sister Margarete were educated at Jacob Loewenberg's girls' school Lyzeum in Hamburg. The family's personal papers, including diaries and letters, are held by the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

Her professional acting career began in 1927 in Berlin, where she worked at the Großes Schauspielhaus theatre before transitioning to film. That work took her to England and eventually to Hollywood. She was already an established figure in German cinema before relocating to the United States. In 1953 she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film I Confess, playing Alma Keller, the wife of murderer and janitor Otto Keller. Hitchcock, a personal friend, cast her in the role. The film also starred Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, and Brian Aherne.

Haas made her New York stage debut in 1941 in Erwin Piscator's production of The Circle of Chalk. In 1946 she took over the lead role from Mary Martin in the touring production of Lute Song, with Yul Brynner as her co-star. Martin assisted Haas in preparing for the role during the limited rehearsal period available. Her Broadway career extended from 1943 to 1955 and included the drama Doctors Disagree, a 1947 revival of Crime and Punishment in which she performed alongside John Gielgud and Lillian Gish, and Anastasia. She also appeared in Off-Broadway productions of The Threepenny Opera and Brecht on Brecht.

Haas married German-born film director John Brahm, who had served as resident director for the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater in Berlin. They divorced in 1941. After becoming a naturalized United States citizen, she married caricaturist and portraitist Al Hirschfeld in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1943. Hirschfeld contributed work to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books. The couple settled in New York City and had a daughter, Nina, born in 1945.