Christel Bodenstein, born as Christa Bodenstein on October 13, 1938, in Munich, moved to Leipzig with her mother in 1949, where she learned to dance at a ballet school. After meeting DEFA director Kurt Maetzig, she went to the casting for his film "Annegrets Heimkehr" (1957), but did not get the part of Annegret. Instead actress Karla Runkehl was chosen to take this part. Despite this failure, Bodenstein started to attend actor's training at HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg and successfully graduated in 1959.

Bodenstein then got numerous role offers and made her movie debut as student Hannelore Ulrich in Slatan Dudow's "Der Hauptmann von Köln" ("The Captain from Cologne", 1956). In the following years, she also starred in several fairy tale movies and became well-known with films such as "Das singende, klingende Bäumchen" ("The Singing Ringing Tree", 1957), directed by Francesco Stefani, or "Der kleine Prinz" (1966), directed by Konrad Wolf, her husband at the time. In 1960, the youth magazine "Neues Leben" named the young student the most popular actress in the GDR. From 1959 to 1973, Bodenstein worked together with many renowned DEFA directors. In the 1960s, she extended her repertoire of films with numerous music and revue films including "Revue um Mitternacht" ("Midnight Review", 1962), directed by Gottfried Kolditz, and co-starring Manfred Krug.

During the 1970s, Bodenstein focused more and more on her theatre career as interesting role offers by DEFA and the DFF failed to materialize. Thus, she performed in musical and literary programmes and, from 1976 on, starred in "Das Ei" at Kleine Bühne of Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast.

After the German reunification, Bodenstein again broadened her horizon, worked more frequently as an assistant director and became a director at Berlin"s Friedrichstadtpalast from 1994 on. Since then, her productions included a Claire Waldorff revue and the revue programme "Sommernachtsträume" (1995). Shortly after that, she retired from working life. In 2016 she played a cameo role in the TV adaptation of "Das singende, klingende Bäumchen" ("The Singing Ringing Tree").

Christel Bodenstein died December 5, 2024 age 86 in Berlin.

The contents of this entry were funded with the support of the DEFA-Stiftung.