Born Today March 9: Astrid Holm

1893-1961

Danish dancer and actress--known mainly for her appearance in the cult silent horror "documentary" Häxan in 1922--was born on this date in Søro, Denmark. Her birth name was Astrid Vilhelmine Rasmussen and her father was a prominent hotelier.  Originally a ballet dancer who had studied at the Royal Danish Ballet, she turned to straight stage acting in 1910. Though she had some recognition in roles played in Copenhagen, her stage career was not a huge success. She was persuaded to try film acting in 1917 when she appeared in the lead role of the Kay Van der Aa Kühle drama Søstrene Morelli.  Her next important role came in a supporting part in the Holger-Madsen post war drama of struggle and survival: A Friend of the People (Folkets ven) in 1918. She also made an appearance Holger-Madsen's 1919 metaphoric melodrama Towards the Light. Holger-Madsen would not be the only silent Danish film master that she worked with during her silent career.  She also worked with Lau Lauritzen in Frøken Larsens Karriere in 1920, and Victor Sjösrtröm in 1921 in his masterpiece The Phantom Carriage  as Edit, her most prominent role to date. Of course, as mentioned above, she had role in Christensen's Häxan in 1922.  Her final silent film appearance came in the Carl Theodore Dreyer film Master of the House (also known in English as Thou Shalt Honour Thy Wife) in 1925, where she took the female lead of Ida opposite Johannes Meyer. She then left off film acting for nearly two decades, preferring instead to act on the stage; this time having much more success in the endeavor. She returned to film in 1942 with a supporting role in the Arne Weel family comedy Ta' briller på.  All of her subsequent films would be in family oriented story lines, save her last. In 1947, she had the supporting role in the noirish and vaguely menacing drama Mani. Holm was increasingly suffering from a number of ailment, which kept her pent up inside for long periods of time for the last decade of her life. She passed away at the age of 68 on the 29th of October in 1961 in Denmark. There is no information on her burial. Her surname Holm was her married name; she was married to ballet dancer Holger Holm, whom died in 1916. She never remarried. 

 

Still from The Phantom Carriage

 

Wikipedia

 

IMDb