Israeli Theater Actress Sets World Record and Still Going Strong

Until very recently the senior theatrical actress Hanna Maron has had no idea that she had set a world record. 

 

The Guinness Records have acknowledged her as the actress with the longest career on stage. 

 

Hanna Maron has been an actress for the last 83 years. Her career began at the age of 4 in Germany, where she was born.

 

[Hanna Maron, Actress]: 

“I was in some kind of an event where a woman director of a certain children’s theatre in Berlin was present, and I must have recited some poem there. She gave me a part in her play and that’s how it all started and has never ended until today.”

 

Hanna continued performing on stage after having left Germany in 1933 and arriving in Israel. 

 

When she became older she played many leading parts in countless plays. 

 

Then, in the midst her thriving career, tragedy struck. 

 

In 1970 Hanna was a victim of a terrorist attack on passengers as they boarded a plane in the Munich airport. 

 

[Hanna Maron, Actress]: 

“They threw a hand grenade and I flew from the stairs, hit a wall, and lost consciousness. All my left side was severely injured.”

 

The doctors tried to save the leg but to no avail. They had to amputate part of it. 

 

Those were hard times for Hanna, but a strong character and a love for the stage helped her return to acting within only one year. 

 

She resumed regular activity in the theatre, as well as in movies. 

 

Even today, at the age of 87, she is still working. 

 

She tells about the special thing that accompanied her throughout her long stage career.

 

[Hanna Maron, Actress]: 

“There is some sort of chemistry, something that is hard to define, which comes to me from the audience, and which I return to them. It is a sort of give and take, which is the essence of my performance.”

 

Reporter:Lee Rom and Elena Tsuprun         Photographer:Michael Ash

NTD News,  Israel