Thea Gabriele von Harbou (December 27, 1888 - July 1, 1954) was a German actress and author of Prussian aristocratic origin. She was born in Tauperlitz in the Kingdom of Bavaria.
In 1905, she published her first novel in the Deutsche Roman-Zeitung. However, she then started to work as an actress, beginning in 1906 in Düsseldorf, then moving to Weimar (1908), Chemnitz (1911) and Aachen (1913). In Aachen she met her first husband, the actor and director Rudolf Klein-Rogge, whom she married in 1914.
In 1920, she wrote her first film script Das Indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb, Mysteries of India), together with Fritz Lang. Fritz Lang became her second husband in 1922, and they collaborated in the following years, writing the screenplays for Metropolis and M together. They separated in October 1931 and divorced in 1933.
In 1932, a year before Adolf Hitler came to power, she joined the National Socialist German Workers Party, which presumably led to the divorce from Lang, who left Germany in 1934 for Paris after his film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse had been banned by the Nazi government.
Harbou wrote the script for Der Herrscher (1937), directed by Veit Harlan and starring Emil Jannings. The movie celebrates unconditional submission under absolute authority, eventually finding reward in total victory.
After the war she was detained by the British military government, and then did unskilled labor, such as cleaning up rubble from the bombing. After receiving a working permit she did some synchronizing of movies, but also continued to write scripts.
In 1954 she died in Berlin.
Thea von Harbou was married to the famous director Fritz Lang. He brought many of her scripts to the screen. In 1932, von Harbou joined the NSDAP, or Nazi Party. Lang, who was opposed to the Nazis, left her and emigrated to America. They divorced in 1933.
Was interned briefly following the end of the Second World War. Following her release, she went back into the film industry synchronizing foreign films. However, she was not as successful as before and her career ended in the early 1950s.
In 1954 one of her first movies - "Der müde Tod" (1921) - was shown in Berlin once more. Thea von Harbou was present as a guest of honor as well. When she left the cinema she slipped in such an unfortunate way that she died some days later as a result of the fall.
The novel "Metropolis" first appeared in the magazine Illustriertes Blatt, Frankfurt. The book was published by August Scherl Verlag GmbH.
