Nadja Tiller was a renowned Austrian actress who rose to fame during the 1950s and 1960s. Born to a family of performers, she initially intended to take over her grandparents' hairdressing establishment in Danzig, but the war intervened. Instead, she enrolled at the Max-Reinhardt Seminar to study dance, ballet, and drama, while working part-time as a mannequin in a hat salon.
Tiller completed her studies four years later at the University of Music and Performing Arts. She then won the title of Miss Austria in 1949 and secured her first theatrical engagement at the Theater in der Josefstadt. Her screen debut was in the Beethoven biopic Eroica (1949),although her part was eventually cut.
Tiller's breakthrough came when she played the title role in Rolf Thiele's drama Friederike von Barring (1956). She continued to work with Thiele, starring in Lulu (1962) and El Hakim (1957). Her most iconic role was as the titular prostitute in Thiele's socially conscious masterpiece Rosemary (1958),which exposed the hypocrisy of people and institutions and won the German Film Critics Award and a Golden Globe.
By the late 1950s, Tiller was an international star, appearing in numerous French, Italian, English, and American productions alongside stars like Jean Marais, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Rod Steiger, and Yul Brynner. In the mid-1970s, she transitioned to character roles and alternated between television and theatrical engagements in Lübeck, Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna.
Tiller was married to actor Walter Giller from 1956 until his death in 2011, and they appeared in several films together. Her last role was as a feisty pensioner in the comedy Dinosaurier (2009). Nadja Tiller passed away on February 21, 2023, at the age of 93.
