Brigitte Helm

Brigitte Helm was a versatile German actress of the Weimar Era. She is remembered primarily for her dual role as the benevolent Maria and the evil Machine Man in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a German film made by UFA in 1925 and 1926. She was remembered by Lang for her superb depiction of the blind girl in the classic silent movie The Love of Jeanne Ney (1928). Helm's image was quite photogenic and photographers used her images to illustrate double exposure when this camera effect was coming into vogue in the late 1920s. Brigitte's movie career continued into the mid 1930s, but not without controversy. She refused to play vamp roles beginning in 1929. Brigitte eventually sued the German studio UFA, the company that produced most of her films.