Katharina Schratt
Katharina Schratt (September 11, 1853, Baden bei Wien, Austria - April 17, 1940, Vienna) was an Austrian actress who became "the uncrowned queen of Austria" as the friend and confidant of Emperor Franz Joseph.
Katharina Schratt was the only daughter of an office supplies dealer; she had 2 brothers. Already at the age of 6 she took an interest in the theatre. Her parents' efforts to discourage the career increased her ambition. At 18, she performed as part of the company of the Hoftheater in Berlin, where she could already achieve considerable successes after short time. Katharina Schratt remained however only few months in Germany, in order to follow the call to Viennese the city theatre. Schratt married Hungarian aristocrat Nikolaus Kiss de Ittebe in 1879, and gave birth to a son, Anton, in 1880. After appearing in New York, she returned permanently to Vienna's Hofburgtheater as one of Austria's most popular actresses until she retired in 1900.
As an actress, Schratt's performance at the 1885 Industrial Exhibition in Vienna attracted the attention of the Emperor Franz Joseph I, and she was invited to perform for visiting Russian Czar Alexander III. Franz Joseph's wife, the Empress Elizabeth, actually promoted the relationship between the actress and the emperor. The friendship continued, with one interruption (1900/01, due to a difference in opinions) until his death in November 1916. Schratt was rewarded with a generous lifestyle including a mansion on Vienna's Gloriettegasse, near the Schönbrunn Palace, and a 3-story palace at the Kärntner Ring, vis à vis the opera. She retired to the latter after the Emperor's death. .
After the death of emperor Franz Joseph she lived completely withdrawn in her palace at the Kärntner ring. She turned down large financial offers for her memoirs.[citation needed] In later years, Schatt became deeply religious. After her death in 1940 at the age of 87, she was buried in the Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna.
References
- Joan Haslip, The Emperor & the Actress: The Love Story of Emperor Franz Josef & Katharina Schratt (Dial Press, 1982)
- Georg Markus, Katharina Schratt: Die zweite Frau des Kaisers (Amalthea, 2004)
- B. Hamann, Meine liebe, gute Freundin! Die Briefe Kaiser Franz Josephs an K. Schratt (Amalthea 1992)
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