Senta Berger
She had to experience these things on set
Senta Berger 2018 at the Berlinale
© imago images / POP-EYE
A Hollywood star, a producer, an Austrian actor: Senta Berger has already made #MeToo moments in the film world.
Actress Senta Berger (79, “Willkommen bei den Hartmanns”) has also experienced “#MeToo” moments on set during her career, as she told in a new interview with “Zeit”. Accordingly, the actor OW Fischer (1915-2004) is said to have tried to rape her while filming “It doesn’t always have to be caviar”.
“After that I should actually have said: I can’t shoot with you tomorrow and make this film with you. But OW Fischer knew that I wouldn’t say that”, said Berger of “Zeit”. Instead, she wouldn’t have exchanged a private word with him. At the end of the shooting, Fischer apologized with the Faust quote “The eternal feminine draws us up”. It is not the first time that she has publicly prosecuted OW Fischer: The actress had already reported about this and other attacks in her book “I know yes, that I can fly” in 2006.
Kirk Douglas tried to kiss her
In the new conversation, she also tells that the Hollywood star Kirk Douglas (1916-2020) once tried to get closer to her. Douglas, with whom she stood in front of the camera for the film “The Giant’s Shadow”, is said to have tried to kiss her against her will. After she turned her head away, the actor with Russian-Jewish roots tried to justify himself with the sentence: “Your people killed my people.” Berger: “I found it to be an incredible combination.”
The case of the fallen film mogul and now convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein (69) did not really surprise you, said Berger. She also experienced a similar incident in New York with the American producer Darryl Zanuck (1902-1979), whom Berger describes as the “Harvey Weinstein figure”: Zanuck invited her to his hotel room and then followed her in her bathrobe . Colleagues had told her that this was “common” behavior.
Meanwhile, the balance of power would change, so Berger: “But in my opinion there is too much discussion about the language and gender asterisks and too little about the real situation. And too much about actresses and too little about cleaning women or bus drivers.”