Ressel Orla

Hardly remembered today, the dark-haired, wide-eyed Ressel Orla came to stardom quickly in the 1910s in Germany after her first major role in Die Firma heiratet (1914) (released in America as The Perfect Thirty-Six). With no offers coming in for stage work, her original vocational pursuit, she continued film work with much success. An expressive and beautiful woman with a dramatic Madonna-like face, she was a star for several years but fell out of popularity in the twenties. At the time of her death, she had fallen on hard times, was no longer acting, and was barely forty. She is undoubtedly remembered best for her performance as the treacherous Lio Sha in Fritz Lang's two part film series The Spiders (1919-20), one of her few performances that are widely available for viewing today.