Mangold announced her stage farewell in 2017 with “Harold and Maude” at the Kammerspiele of the theater in der Josefstadt – which closed a circle, as the young actress had just made her debut on that stage in 1946. In this respect, it is only logical that the semicircular birthday matinee also takes place on January 30th in Josefstadt, where Sandra Cervik talks to the jubilee about her life.
And that began on January 26th, 1927 in Großweikersdorf in an art-loving family, the father was a part-time painter, the mother a passionate pianist. So it’s only logical that young Ernestine was also drawn to culture. After training at the Krauss drama school in Vienna, after her debut from 1946, she finally played at Josefstadt until 1956. How she made her career on the one hand as “Sexerl”, on the other hand refined her defense techniques in the face of the frequent intrusiveness (“The men were after me, that it was a horror”) and yet at the side of Helmut Qualtinger or Ernst Haas with verve ins Viennese nightlife plunged, she describes in detail in “Let me be in peace”.
In 1956 she went to the Deutsche Schauspielhaus Hamburg under Gustaf Gründgens for eight years, then to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus under Karlheinz Stroux. Further engagements in Germany, Switzerland and Austria followed between 1965 and 1972. At the same time, Mangold discovered her love for “alternative” theater. For example, she performed in the Viennese setting before Hans Gratzer brought her to the Wiener Schauspielhaus in 1981, and later she was the discoverer of the playwright Werner Schwab.
The multi-faceted artist, who was awarded the Kainz Medal in 1972, was recognized as a “special rare type of woman” when she was appointed chamber actress in 1999. The former Volkstheater director and her former student Michael Schottenberg later called her “a monster of truthfulness”. And Mangold demonstrated this in a wide range of roles.
In addition to more classic characters like Marthe Schwerdtlein in “Faust”, Lady Macbeth or Frau Muskat in “Liliom”, Mangold also recommended herself as a grandiose specialist in bizarre things like “Arsenic and Old Lace” or for idiosyncratic fictional characters like the ageless ” Snow White “in Elfriede Jelinek’s” Prinzessinnendramen “. Her stage farewell with the stage adaptation of the classic film “Harold and Maude” also falls into this category.
In addition to her stage career, Mangold has appeared in well over 100 film and television productions, including Karl Hartl’s “The Angel with the Trumpet” (1948), OW Fischer’s “Hanussen” (1955), Peter Patzak’s “Kassbach” (1979) and Richard Linklaters ” Before Sunrise “(1995). The actress, who was married to her fellow actor Heinz Reincke for 20 years, also became an institution as a teacher. She taught at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Krauss Drama School in Vienna and at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, where she raised the next generation from 1974 – between 1983 and 1995 as a full university professor.
She herself said goodbye to the stage in 2017 – in her own style: “As far as my quitting is concerned, I’m really fed up with it now.” After all, rehearsing a work always takes a lot of energy: “My God, the theater is not that important either. (…) And for old women there are no more roles anyway.” It looked different in the film. Here was Mangold, who was awarded the Austrian Film Prize in 2015 for her role as a geriatric patient in Houchang Allahyari’s “The Last Dance”, to be seen in Wolfgang Murnberger’s “Schöne Schlamassel” in 2020.
But Erni Mangold has lived in her farmhouse in the Waldviertel for many years, at an address with her own name since her 80s. The community of Sankt Leonhard am Hornerwald dedicated the “Prof. Erni Mangold-Weg” to her. “I’m proud of my awards, but that was the best present for me. You usually only get your own street name posthumously,” she writes in “Leave me alone”.
Awards that fade towards one’s own path include the Diagonale’s Great Drama Award (2016), the Nestroy Ring of the City of Bad Ischl (2015) and the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art (2012). And Mangold probably gave herself the most beautiful birthday present, at least in terms of appearance, last year, as she published the illustrated book “Say what you think. My life in pictures” at Styria Verlag. And that sounds more conciliatory than “leave me alone”.
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