Elfriede Dugall, born February 14, 1920, in Berlin as the daughter of theatre actor Wilhelm Dugall, made her stage debut already at the age of twelve. After her performance in the Humperdinck opera "Königskinder" in Magdeburg in 1936, she made her movie debut in the short film "Nachtbesuch" one year later. In 1938/39, she was seen at Theater des Volkes in Berlin. After an engagement in Neisse, she returned to Berlin in 1943. In the same year, she and her family escaped the chaos of war in the German capital and went to Landsberg. In 1944, Elfie Dugall made her feature film debut in a supporting role in the propaganda film "Die Affäre Roedern".

After the end of World War II, newly-found DEFA Film Production gave her the role of a kitchen maid in the authentic repatriate film "Freies Land" (1946). As a member of DEFA-Nachwuchsstudio, Dugall played larger and smaller supporting roles in films like Arthur Pohl’s "Die Brücke" ("The Bridge", 1949), Falk Harnack’s "Das Beil von Wandsbeck" ("The Axe of Wandsbek", 1951), or Hans Heinrich’s "Alter Kahn und junge Liebe" (1957) until the mid-1950s. Besides, she also worked as a dubbing voice and radio play voice. In 1958, Dugall became a cast member of West Berlin’s Hebbel-Theater where she worked for ten years. In 1969, she finally withdrew from acting. Elfie Dugall lives in Meersburg at Lake Constance.