Zass, Catherine

Mother Catherine is a theater actress Marga Heiden, who gained fame on the GDR television thanks to her participation in the television plays of the Mecklenburg Theater. At the insistence of her mother, Catherine received first a telephony profession, then unsuccessfully tried to enroll in the Ernst Bush Higher Actor School in Berlin and finally entered to study as an actress in Rostock .

In 1979, the 23-year-old Catherine first appeared on movie screens in the lead role of a disillusioned young woman in the film “Until death do you apart” ( Bis daß der Tod euch scheidet ). Catherine expected great success in the 80s. For her role in the film “Year's Guaranty ” ( Bürgschaft für ein Jahr , 1981), shot during her studies, the actress won the Silver Bear at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival . According to the actress, after her trip to West Berlin for the award she was not allowed to withdraw for two years. From the mid-1980s, the actress starred a lot at the DEFA film studio , and in 1987 she was named actress of the year and was considered a recognized GDR movie star along with Angelica Domrose .

The theater career Zass began in the 1980s at the Kleist Theater in Frankfurt an der Oder , in 1981 she received an invitation from Peter Zodann to the theater in Halle , and then moved to the drama theater in Leipzig , where she served until 1990.

In the 1990s, there was a pause in Zass’s career, she appeared only in the TV series “Police Phone 110” (Polizeiruf 110), where in 1993–1998 she played the role of Chief Commissioner Tanya Voigt. From the age of 19, Catherine Sasse became addicted to alcohol, and this dependence became especially acute during the change of state in East Germany. The actress managed to cope with alcohol only in 1998, and since 2001 she has openly shared her pernicious addiction to alcohol in the past, which ultimately deprived her of her work in the television series.

The triumphant return of Catherine Zass to the cinema and the international success of the actress began in 2001 with the main role in the social drama Heidi M. (2001) and the film “ Goodbye Lenin! (2003). In 2006, Zass played the role of Celia Peach in the production of Bertolt Brecht ’s The Three-Gallic Opera on the stage of the Metropol Theater in Berlin.

In 1991–2007, Zass was married to East German director Siegfried Kühn ; there are no children. He currently lives in Mecklenburg and Berlin.

• 1979: Until death do you part / Bis daß der Tod euch scheidet
• 1980: Bride / Die Verlobte
• 1981: Yearly Bail / Bürgschaft für ein Jahr
• 1984: House on the river / Das Haus am Fluß
• 1985: Ab heute erwachsen
• 1985: Meine Frau Inge und meine Frau Schmidt
• 1986: Der Traum vom Elch
• 1987: Fallada - the last chapter / Fallada - letztes Kapitel
• 1989: Heute sterben immer nur die anderen
• 1997: Härtetest
• 2001: Heidi M.
• 2002: Babi Jar - Das vergessene Verbrechen
• 2003: Good-bye, Lenin! / Good Bye, Lenin!
• 2005: Warchild
• 2008: Reich mir deine Hand
• 2009: Lulu & Jimi
• 2010: Silence / Das letzte Schweigen
• 2013: Sein letztes Rennen

• Wer war wer in der DDR? 5. Ausgabe. Band 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 (it.)
• filmportal.de