Artist:Lotte Lenya
Song:Pirate Jenny
Album:The Threepenny Opera: A Decca Broadway Original Cast Album
Lotte Lenya is probably best known for her Oscar nominated performance in the 1961 film The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and her villainous Rosa Klebb in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love. But she performed on stage in Europe and in nightclubs after moving to the US. She is most associated with the music of her composer husband Kurt Weill and she won a Tony for playing Jenny in the 1956 production of The Threepenny Opera. Lotte was born Karoline Blaumauer Oct. 18, 1898 in Vienna, Austria. She performed in a neighborhood circus as a child. She moved to Zurich in 1913 and took dancing and acting lessons. Then she moved to Berlin in 1921. Lotte met Weill and they married in 1926. She appeared in his 1931 production of The Threepenny Opera in Germany. With the rise of Nazism, they moved to Paris and then to New York in 1935. Lotte started singing in nightclubs in 1938 and she occasionally recorded. After Weill died in 1950, Marc Blitzstein wrote English lyrics for The Threepenny Opera and it was performed on Broadway in 1956. Lotte won a Tony for playing Jenny. Pirate Jenny is her big song in the show. Of course Mack the Knife is the best known song in The Threepenny Opera and this remastered edition of the original cast album includes a bonus track of Lotte singing Mack the Knife with Blitzstein on piano. The exposure got Lotte a record deal with Columbia and film roles in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone which got her an Oscar nomination and From Russia with Love. She also played Fraulein Schneider in the 1966 Broadway show Cabaret. Lotte continued to appear in films, record and perform in clubs until her death on Nov. 27, 1981 at age 83. Here's Lotte Lenya performing Pirate Jenny on German TV 1956.
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