Lisa Golm

Lisa Golm was born Luise Schmertzler and married Ernst (Ernest) Golm who would later become a character actor with her in Hollywood, but had his first career as a dentist catering to some of the movie stars in Berlin in the late 1920s and 30s. Lisa studied theater as a hobby with Conrad Veidt. When she and Ernst fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and settled in Southern California, her husband continued his dental career from Beverly Hills while Lisa put her acting training to use with the increasing demand for German accented and other ethnic bits in films as the USA advanced toward World War II. When her first film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), opened, members of the Golm family in different parts of the US took the day off work to see her on the big screen. Lisa and Ernest (who made far fewer film appearances and no TV) were together in two movies, The Hitler Gang (1944) and Mission to Moscow (1943). Lisa was the type who enjoyed mingling with the society set, so it was ironic she was often cast as maids. Her family nickname, the red broomstick, because she was tall, thin, and had red hair, can best be understood if one sees one of her few color films such as Rhapsody (1954). After Ernest died Lisa retired and moved to Israel.