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Thea Gabriele von Harbou (December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954) was a German actress, author and film director 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... MORE

Thea Gabriele von Harbou (December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954) was a German actress, author and film director 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 based on her novel The Indian Tomb. Fritz Lang became her second husband in 1922, and they collaborated in the following years, writing the screenplays for Metropolis and M together (Metropolis being based upon a novella she wrote in 1925). 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 (Nazi) 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 LESS