ITA RINA
ACTRESS / ACTRIZ
She was a Slovenian film actress and one of the major film stars in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s and the early 1930s.
Ita Rina was born on 7th July 1907 in the small town of Divaca (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Yugoslavia, and now Slovenia)
Her family moved to Ljubljana after the beginning of the world war.
She wasn't a good student and her dream was to be an actress....
In 1926 a Slovenian magazine organized a beauty pageant and Ita was crowned Miss Slovenia!! So she was to travel to the final event for Miss Yugoslavia.
Adolf Müller, the owner of "Balkan Palace Cinema" in Zagreb, noticed Ita and sent her photographs to a German film producer.
Ita arrived in Berlin in 1927, she had classes in acting, diction, dancing etc...
Her debut was in the film What do Children Hide from their Parents.
In 1928 the critics noticed her with the film The Last Supper but her greatest success was in the film Erotikon.
In 1930 Ita acted in three films, and the most notable was Tonka Sibenice, the first talking Czech film. It is named her best role!
In 1931 she married Miodrag Dordevic and changed her religion from Roman Catholic to Servian Orthodox.
The same year Ita Rina was given an offer from Hollywood, but her husband forced her to choose between her career and the marriage, and she chose to stay with him and settled in Beltrade. They had two children.
She returned to acting once, in 1960 with the film Atomic War Bride and this was her last role...
Ita Rina suffered from asthma, so she and her husband moved to Montenegro in 1967.
Ita died on 10th may 1979 of an asthmatic attack. She was buried in Belgrade, in the presence of film artists, admirers, friends and family.
Marta Cabiscol
English for Fun 4B