Memorial Page for Erni Mangold

Erni Mangold (born 26 January 1927 in Großweikersdorf, Lower Austria; died 5 September 2026 in Vienna) was an Austrian actress and director. For more than seven decades she worked on the stages of Vienna, Hamburg and Düsseldorf, appeared in some 150 film and television productions, and taught young actors for more than twenty years.

A childhood between piano and inn

She was born Erna Goldmann in her grandparents' inn. Her father, Heinrich Goldmann, was a teacher and school director by profession and a painter by passion. Her mother, seventeen years younger, had given up a possible career as a concert pianist for the family and taught her daughter the piano from the age of four to fourteen. In 1938 the family moved to Vienna.

Acting school at fifteen

Attending the Krauss acting school alongside grammar school at fifteen was her father's idea. She made her debut at Vienna's Renaissancetheater. In 1944 she was cast in a small role in Nestroy's Lumpacivagabundus at the Salzburg Festival, but the war cancelled every performance. She began studying philosophy in 1945 and soon gave it up for the theatre.

Ten years at the Josefstadt

From 1946 to 1956 she belonged to the ensemble of the Theater in der Josefstadt, and it was in those years that she took the stage name by which she became known. In 1955 she moved to Hamburg, performing under Gustaf Gründgens at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus until 1963, and then under Karl-Heinz Stroux in Düsseldorf until 1965.

The teacher

From 1972 she taught: at the Salzburg Mozarteum, at the Krauss school where she had trained herself, and at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. From 1974 to 1995 she taught at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, from 1984 as a full professor.

150 roles for screen and television

Between 1948 and 2020 she appeared in around 150 film and television productions. Her best-known cinema role was the seer's lover in Hanussen (1955). On television she played in three episodes of Kottan ermittelt and in several Tatort films. In 1995 she had a short, unforgettable appearance as the palm reader in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.

An award at 88

In 2015, at the age of 88, she received the Austrian Film Award for Best Actress for Der letzte Tanz. The Große Diagonale-Schauspielpreis followed in 2016, and in 2022 the Platinum Romy for her life's work.

The last curtain

From 1958 to 1978 she was married to the actor Heinz Reincke. She had no children. From the early 1990s she lived in St. Leonhard am Hornerwald in an eighteenth-century house she had bought in 1984. Her memoirs appeared in 2011 under the title Lassen Sie mich in Ruhe - "Leave me in peace". In December 2017 she took her leave of the stage with Harold and Maude at the Wiener Kammerspiele, 71 years after her first engagement at the Josefstadt. On 5 September 2026 a life of 99 years came to an end in Vienna.