Undisputed master of cinematic melodrama and one of the most prominent film directors of the 20th century, Douglas Sirk (real name Hans Detlef Sierck) was born on 26 April 1897 in Hamburg. He started his career as a producer at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg in 1920, before moving to Chemnitz and Brême. In 1929, he accepted the role of director in Leipzig and also staged plays in Berlin. However, in 1933, the Staatstheater Berlin refused to employ him due to the Jewish origins of his second wife, actress Hilde Jary.
The Nazi Party suggested that Sierck separate from his wife, which he refused to do. In 1934, Sierck finally abandoned Leipzig for Berlin, where he embarked on a career in film at the UFA. The respite was short-lived, but two successes improved his finances – Das Mädchen vom Moorhof (The Girl from the Marsh Croft) and Stützen der Gesellschaft (Pillars of Society). Sierck went on to make Schlussakkord (The Final Chord), Das Hofkonzert (The Court Concert) and Zu Neuen Ufern (To New Shores), before taking advantage of the scenes in La Habanera shot on location abroad to recover his passport and leave the country at the end of 1937. Before spending time in the Netherlands, he visited Vienna, Rome, Paris, and Montreux, where he supervised the filming of a French-Swiss production, Accord final (Final Accord), despite not being credited. Stripped of their German nationality, Sierck and his wife emigrated to the USA in 1939 on an invitation from Warner Bros.
Going by the name of Douglas Sirk, he worked as a screenwriter and director, mainly for United Artists, Columbia and Universal. Up until 1959, he made around 30 films with these studios, including Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, and Imitation of Life. In the 1960s, Sirk returned to Germany to work on several theatre productions and teach at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (University of Television and Film Munich).
The collection was deposited at the Cinémathèque suisse on 13 December 2012 by the “Douglas Sirk, Zurich” Foundation, represented by This (Matthias) Brunner and Bernard Uhlmann. Additional deposits of paper documents and photographs arrived on 23 October 2014 and on 8 May 2018. The collection includes manuscripts, scripts, letters, diaries, theatre programs, family photos, photo albums of film shoots and theatre productions, press cuttings, diplomas, awards and framed artwork. Some of the documents and photos concern Hilde Jary, née Kröner, Douglas Sirk’s wife.