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Maria Sebaldt, a gracious and empathetic doyenne of stage and screen, often portrayed poignant maternal or insightful characters during her nearly six-decade career. Born in Berlin, she was the daughter of a former portrait painter who, by 1930, had risen to a senior department head position at the German branch of Paramount—a time when Hollywood financing supported struggling German studios like Ufa. Beginning her acting training at sixteen with private lessons, she later attended the Stanislavsky Academy in Weimar, graduating in 1950. Early in her career, she performed on stage, gaining recognition as a sophisticated boulevardier and cabaret artist with notable roles at Berlin’s Komödie am Kurfürstendamm (founded by Max Reinhardt in 1924) and Munich’s Kleine Komödie.
After her screen debut in 1953, Sebaldt took on supporting and secondary lead roles across diverse genres—from operettas such as The Gypsy Baron (1954), comedies like The Captain from Köpenick (1956), and romantic melodramas including Liebe ohne Illusion (1955), to thrillers such as Der Greifer (1958) and classic literary adaptations like The Buddenbrooks (1959). She earned top billing as the heroine in the crime satire Hoppla, jetzt kommt Eddie (1958), playing the travel companion to the title character; in Das schwarze Schaf (1960), a murder mystery featuring Heinz Rühmann as G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown (with whom she later co-starred in the crime comedy A Mission for Mr. Dodd (1964)); and in the swinging sixties comedy Bekenntnisse eines möblierten Herrn (1963), portraying Daniela, a spirited woman who outwits a womanizing lothario played by Karl Michael Vogler. Among her notable roles was the beautiful heiress Carlotta Ramirez in an Austrian adaptation of the farce Charley’s Aunt, opposite Peter Alexander. In contrast, she portrayed a lady rancher in the international cast of the gritty Italo western Five Thousand Dollars on One Ace (1965).
In later years, Sebaldt remained popular with audiences as a television character actress, especially memorable as the nurturing family matriarch in Die Wicherts von nebenan (1986). She made numerous guest appearances on prime-time series, including Tatort (1970), Derrick (1974), and Das Traumschiff (1981). Additionally, she occasionally worked as a voice actress, dubbing for actresses such as Joan Greenwood, Joanne Woodward, and Eva Marie Saint. Maria Sebaldt passed away in Munich on April 4, 2023, at the age of 92. She was preceded in death by her husband of 45 years, actor Robert Freitag, who died in 2010; the couple had one daughter.
