Marthe Keller

Marthe Keller (born 28 January 1945) is a Swiss actress and opera director. She is perhaps best known for her role in the film Marathon Man (1976), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

Career

Early years

Keller studied ballet as a child, but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theater and the Berliner Ensemble.

Film work

Keller’s earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (1966, in which she was not credited) and the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including Un Cave (1971), La Raison du Plus Fou (1973) and Toute Une Vie/And Now My Love (1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman’s girlfriend in Marathon Man (1976) and her performance as a femme fatale Palestinian terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday (1977). Keller acted alongside Al Pacino in the 1977 romantic drama film Bobby Deerfield, based on Erich Maria Remarque’s novel Heaven Has No Favorites, and subsequently the two were involved in a relationship. She also acted alongside William Holden in Billy Wilder’s 1978 romantic drama Fedora.

After 1978, Keller did more work in European cinema than in Hollywood. Her later films include Dark Eyes (1987), with Marcello Mastroianni.

In April 2016, she was announced as the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

Theater work

In 2001, Keller appeared in an all-star Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann’s play Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by John Tillinger, as Mrs. Bertholt, in the role played by Marlene Dietrich in the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version. She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance.

Opera work

In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of Joan of Arc in Arthur Honegger’s oratorio Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky’s Perséphone. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital. The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama Cassandre, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller who gave the world premiere in 1994.

Keller’s first production as an opera director was Dialogues des Carmélites for Opéra national du Rhin in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year. She has also directed Lucia di Lammermoor for Washington National Opera and for Los Angeles Opera. Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of Don Giovanni.

Personal life

Keller has one son, Alexandre (born 1971), from her relationship with director Philippe de Broca.

Theatre

Year	Title	Author	Director	Notes
1970	A Day in the Death of Joe Egg	Peter Nichols	Michel Fagadau	Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse
1979	Three Sisters	Anton Chekhov	Lucian Pintilie	Théâtre de la Ville
1982	Emballage perdu	Vera Feyder	Nelly Borgeaud	Théâtre des Mathurins
1983	Exiles	James Joyce	Andreas Voutsinas	Théâtre Renaud-Barrault
1983	Exiles	James Joyce	Andreas Voutsinas	Théâtre Renaud-Barrault
1983-86	Jedermann	Hugo von Hofmannsthal	Ernst Haeussermann & Gernot Friedel	Festival de Salzbourg
1984	Betrayal	Harold Pinter	Sami Frey	Théâtre des Célestins
1986	Don Carlos	Friedrich Schiller	Michelle Marquais	Théâtre de la Ville
1988	Hamlet	William Shakespeare	Patrice Chéreau	Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers
1997	Kinkali	Arnaud Bedouet	Philippe Adrien	Théâtre national de la Colline
2001	Judgment at Nuremberg	Abby Mann	Joe Tillinger	Broadway theatre
2008	The Stronger	August Strindberg	Wadsworth	Arclight Theatre
2011	Jan Karski (mon nom est une fiction)	Yannick Haenel	Arthur Nauzyciel	Festival d’Avignon