NÖN: This Thursday you will be an unbelievable 95. Are there candles, champagne and cake? And is a birthday a reason to celebrate for you? Or rather to look back?
Waltraut Haas: I’m curious myself if there will be a cake with candles! My son, my daughter-in-law and our friends Tamara Trojani and Konstantin Schenk have organized that I can be on stage on my birthday and that many friends and family will be in the audience. Under the title “Flotter Dreier” I will sing and chat with the artist hosts in the “Stöckl” restaurant.
There’s a lot to look back on with one of Austria’s most famous actresses. Theatre, film, television – but first: what is the earliest you can remember? In your family, at school, in Schönbrunn?
Haas: That’s where the “Stöckl” comes into play once more: when my father, a teacher, died in 1931, I was just four years old and my mother Stefanie, I and my brother Fritz, who was two at the time, were left with nothing. My grandmother was not lacking in wealth and leased the Stöckl restaurant for my mother. So Schönbrunn Palace, on whose grounds the Stöckl is located, became my new home, and playing and romping around in the palace gardens are my first memories – as is the secret, strictly forbidden bathing in the Neptune Fountain.
I stayed ‘the Mariandl’ to this day! Waltraud Haas
You (also) grew up during the war, when it began you were just 12, when it ended you were 18. What was the worst and best thing regarding that time? And what did you “take away” from it?
Haas: The war was bad for all of us, I particularly remember the bomb alerts. The zoo was also hit, where many animals died. The starving population was once fed with goulash made from dead elephants – but at the time, despite hunger, I didn’t have the heart to eat from it. To this day, war is the worst thing that people can do to other people.
But there are also nice memories during this time. My cat disappeared following a bomb attack. Shortly before Christmas, however, she ran to a neighbor who secretly took care of her, just so that I might have a wonderful present for Christmas. It was the most wonderful Christmas with my Minka, which I then had back.
During the war you also started an apprenticeship as a tailor, then studied acting and music. Why didn’t you stick to fashion? And was it already clear to you that you wanted to be on stage?
Haas: Tailoring was never my heart’s desire, but as was customary at the time, I first had to learn something “smart”. After completing the journeyman’s examination, I was allowed to become an actress, which was my heart’s desire from the start.
You were on stage relatively soon, at the age of 22, at the so-called Wiener Bürgertheater. Were you already a “folk actress”? Did you want to become one? And what did you learn back then for your future career?
Haas: A folk actress is not something you can or want to become – that’s always decided by the public and the press. I actually wanted to go to the Reinhardt Seminar, but I didn’t pass the entrance exam at the time. That’s how I came to the Prayner Conservatory in Vienna, and one of my teachers then became director of the Landestheater Linz. He was allowed to take a few of his students with him – I was there and that’s how my theater career in Linz began.
Key word: career. It actually started two years earlier, with the film. Then Hans Wolff shot “Hofrat Geiger” – with Hans Moser, Paul Hörbiger, Maria Andergast and Waltraut Haas (instead of Maria Schell) as Mariandl. The film was “insanely well received”, as was Mariandl (“a promising talent”, wrote the first headlines). How was that for you? Why did the Mariandl accompany you for so long? And didn’t you also think regarding Hollywood at the time?
Haas: It was of course a tailor-made start, especially since the following films were also great successes. Of course, I’ve still remained “the Mariandl” to this day – and from the 1960s also “the Rösslwirtin”. Hollywood knocked twice. Once half a film “The Adventures of William Tell” at the side of Eroll Flynn, which was shot in Switzerland and unfortunately failed due to Flynn’s financial bankruptcy and remained unfinished. Then a liaison with Tyrone Power, who wanted me as a partner in his new film, but unfortunately died before then.
But you also played many other roles. The “Rose vom Wörthersee”, the landlady in the “Weißes Rößl” and the mother of “Jedermann”, in “Tatort” and at “Wetten, dass..?”, on tour and in the Wachau. Who – and where – did you like to play most? And who or what else would you have wanted to play?
Haas: Preferably with the family. I have had many tours and engagements in Austria, Germany and Switzerland with my husband, as well as cruises with our personality show. But I also played a lot with my son and daughter-in-law. Above all, of course, in Weißenkirchen in der Wachau.
You were still filming when you were 90. And you were still acting when you were 93, in Weißenkirchen, at the Wachau Festival and with your son Marcus. Can you stop playing at all? Do you have to stop? And what came following playing? The writing? The reading? The teaching?
Haas: The writing is already behind me. Three biographies testify to a rich and long life. The last book, Now I Say It, in collaboration with the wonderful Marina Wattek, reveals the final secrets of my life and is still available. Before that, I even wrote a couple of fairy tale books, where I cast impromptu fairy tales for my little son. Teaching has never appealed to me. The mother in “Jedermann” was my last role two years ago at the Wachau Festival. I was a bit unsteady on my feet. At some point, of course, it has to end. But I still want to be there for my audience from time to time. My son would like to perform readings with me in the future. I’m looking forward to it!
You were always connected to the Wachau, to Dürnstein, to Weißenkirchen, to Spitz, where you are also the patroness of the Hotel Mariandl there. And you once said that the best apricot dumplings are also available in the Wachau at the “Kirchenwirt in Weißenkirchen”. What does the Wachau have that other areas don’t have? And why didn’t you just stay there, on the Danube?
Haas: I think you have to keep coming back from somewhere else to appreciate how beautiful the Wachau is. I have decided to live in Vienna. And to be honest, that’s not exactly the worst thing!
Your son, who you have with your partner and colleague Erwin Strahl, who died much too early, is also an actor, director and artistic director. Could he have become something else?
Haas: We never influenced Marcus’ career path and were even very happy that he never showed any ambitions in this direction, because it’s a difficult profession and my husband and I started at a time when there were few artists gave. If in the past one of the few had talent, he also became a well-known artist. There are so many great talents today that never got a chance. We were lucky there.
What else do you wish for?
Haas: There are still a few good years for my family and me, especially in health. And that my audience doesn’t forget me, even if I don’t perform much anymore.
