Marianne Sägebrecht

This Rubanesque character player with a heart-shaped face and child-like features began her career as a leading producer and performer of Germany's alternative theater/cabaret scene. The eclectic background of Marianne Sagebrecht included stints as a medical lab assistant and magazine assistant editor before she found her calling in show business. Claiming to be inspired by Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II, she became known as the "mother of Munich's sub-culture" as producer and performer of avant-garde theater and cabaret revues, particularly with her troupe Opera Curiosa. Spotted by director Percy Adlon in a 1977 production of "Adele Spitzeder" in which she essayed the role of a delicate prostitute, Sagebrecht was cast as Madame Sanchez/Mrs. Sancho Panza in Adlon's TV special "Herr Kischott" (1979), a spin on "Don Quixote." The director put her in his 1983 feature "The Swing" in a small role and then created the leading role of Marianne, an overweight mortician in love with a subway conductor, in "Sugarbaby" (1985) especially for her.