Christen kauffman biography of alberta

Christine Maria Kaufmann, the German-Austrian actress who won a Golden Globe at 17, married Tony Curtis at 18 and had a second career as beauty and cosmetics magnate, died Monday after a long battle with leukemia.

She was 72.

Kaufmann was born in Austria in 1945 to a French makeup artist and a German engineer and grew up in Munich. She entered show business early, performing in the German musical The White Horse Inn at the age of 7.

But it was Rose Girl, a 1954 drama, where she played the orphan child of the title, that launched her career.

A series of Bavarian melodramas followed before she got her international break, starring in The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) alongside Hercules actor Steve Reeves.

Several Hollywood roles followed, including, in 1962, Town Without Pity with Kirk Douglas, and TarasBulba, a Romeo & Juliet story set in 16th century Ukraine that also starred Curtis.