Lilia Skala

Lilia Skala was born on Nov 28, 1896 in Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. Lilia Skala's big-screen debut came with Mädchenpensionat directed by Géza von Bolváry in 1936. Lilia Skala is known for House of Games directed by David Mamet, Lindsay Crouse stars as Margaret Ford and Joe Mantegna as Mike. Lilia Skala has got 1 awards and 6 nominations so far. The most recent award Lilia Skala achieved is Western Heritage Awards. The upcoming new movie Lilia Skala plays is Men of Respect which will be released on Jan 18, 1991.

Born Lilia Sofer on November 28, 1896, and raised in Vienna, Austria, Lilia Skala's parents were Katharina Skala (Catholic) and Julius Sofer (Jewish). Her father worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Kohinoor company. Lilia Skala had two sisters, Lisl (later known in the United States as Elizabeth Polk, later a renowned dance therapy pioneer) and Felicitas ("Lizi"; pronounced Litzi; an infant/baby nurse). All three sisters adopted their mother's gentile maiden name of "Skala" and later emigrated to the United States.Lilia Skala would become a star on two continents. In pre-World War II Austria she starred in famed Max Reinhardt's stage troupe, and in post-war America she would become a notable matronly, award-worthy character star on Broadway and in films. Forced to flee her Nazi-occupied homeland with her Jewish husband, Louis Erich Pollak (who also adopted his mother-in-law's gentile maiden name of "Skala") and two young sons in the late 1930s, Lilia and her family managed to escape (at different times) to England. In 1939, practically penniless, they immigrated to the USA, where she sought menial labor in New York's garment district. She quickly learned English and worked her way back to an acting career, this time as a sweet, delightful, thick-accented Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy nominee.She broke through the Broadway barrier in 1941 with "Letters to Lucerne", followed by a featured role in the musical "Call Me Madam" with Ethel Merman. In the 1950s, she did an extensive tour in "The Diary of Anne Frank" as Mrs. Frank, and performed in a German-language production of Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera". Lilia became a familiar benevolent face on TV in several early soap operas, including Claudia: The Story of a Marriage (1952).She won her widest claim to fame, however, as the elderly chapel-building Mother Superior opposite Sidney Poitier in Les Lys des champs (1963), for which she won both Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. That led to more character actress work in films, most notably as the dog-carrying Jewish lady in the star-studded La nef des fous (1965) and as Jennifer Beals's elderly friend in Flashdance (1983). On TV she played Eva Gabor's Hungarian mother in Les arpents verts (1965) and earned an Emmy nomination for her work in the popular miniseries Eleanor and Franklin (1976)).She continued filming into her 90th year. Her final film work, occurring in the 1980's, went on to include a touching role as Hanna Long in the hit musical Flashdance (1983), plus parts in Le dernier testament (1983), Engrenages (1987) and Un homme respectable (1990). A few years later, on December 18, 1994, Lilia died of natural causes in Bay Shore (Long Island), New York. It was a few weeks after her 98th birthday.