Manyi Kiss
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Manyi Kiss (March 12, 1911—March 24, 1971) was a Hungarian actress.
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[edit] Career
Born in Magyarlona, she acted from 1926 in Cluj, Romania, from 1928 in Miskolc and then between 1929 and 1932 in Szeged, Hungary. At the beginning of her career she created with a natural acting style and excellent knowledge of dance and singing various comic roles. From 1932 for a while she performed with her Italian artist husband in circuses abroad. In 1934 she made her debut in Budapest but was not contracte to any theatre. She continued to act at the Podium cabare. In 1930 the Capital Operretta Theatre contracted her, but she also performed at the Hungarian Theatre, the Andrassy Avenue theatre, the Erzsebetvarosi Theatre, the Markus Park theatre as well as the Vidam Theatre. In 1943 she contracted to the Vigszinhaz. By then she had become one of the Budapest audience's favourite performers.
After World War II she performed in numerous Budapest venues, but only contracted for individual roles out of necessity - as politically she become persona non grata under the communist regime - someone had seen her sing on the front to soldiers. In 1954 she contacted with the Madach Theatre. In that decade she concentrated on dramatic roles ( B. Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder[Mother Courage...]). From then on her ouvre expanded to include gotesque, tragi-comic and dramatic heroic roles with unfettered style and extraordinary range and accuracy. Her colleagues noted the brevity with which she was able to master a role in very little time at all. The Madach contract ended her career with some well deserved honours from the state: Jaszai prizem (1954), Kossuth prize (1957) an outstanding award (1962) and an artistic excellence award (1964).
Her colleagues only learnt of her terminal illness during her final days. She died in Budapest.
[edit] Main roles
Her repertoire included Kálmán's Die Csardasfürstin; Chekhov's Three Sisters; Molière's The Wise Women; Goodrich-Hackett's The Diary of Anne Frank; and Shaffer's Black Comedy.
[edit] Film roles
She performed in 30 films from the late 1930s to the early 1970s.
