Liane Haid

Juliane "Liane" Haid (16 August 1895 – 28 November 2000) was an Austrian actress and singer. She has often been referred to as Austria's first movie star. Juliane Haid was born in Vienna on 16 August 1895, the first child to Georg Haid (1864–1951) and Juliane Haid (1873–1939). She had two younger sisters, Grit (1900– 1938), who also became an actress, and Johanna (1903–1964).

Haid trained both as a dancer and singer and became the epitome of the Süßes Wiener Mädel ("Sweet Viennese Girl") and a popular pin-up throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Her first motion picture was a propaganda film made during the First World War, Mit Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland (1916). She worked for UFA and, as a trained singer, easily made the transition to the sound era, appearing in comedy films alongside Austrian and German stars such as Willi Forst, Bruno Kastner, Georg Alexander, Theo Lingen, and Heinz Rühmann. Her first husband, Baron Fritz von Haymerle, helped her found her film company, Micco-Film.

Having refused several offers from Hollywood, she left Germany for Switzerland in 1942 "because of the regime, because everything was bombed, and because all the good directors had left". She married Carl Spycher and ended her film career. Spycher adopted Liane's son, Pierre (born 1940), who was the result of her second marriage to Hans Somborn.

Her notable films include Lady Hamilton (1921; her breakthrough role); Lucrezia Borgia (1922); The Csardas Princess (1927, based on the operetta by Emmerich Kálmán); and the talkies The Song Is Ended (1930) and Ungeküsst soll man nicht schlafen gehn (1936). She made her last film appearance in 1953. Haid died in Bern, Switzerland in 2000.