Lilo Pulver

That contagious laugh! No report about Liselotte (“Lilo”) Pulver is ever complete without reference to the ever-popular Swiss actress’s trademark laughter. Pulver’s 90^th birthday in October was no exception. Although Pulver has now withdrawn from public life and lives in a retirement home in Berne, her city of birth, she marked her big birthday with the publication of “Was vergeht, ist nicht verloren” (What passes is not lost) – a book containing personal memoirs based on old photos, letters and notes. Having kept all her mementos, Pulver – born in 1929 to middle-class parents – has now decided to tell the story of a long life that few could have expected. It was not until after visiting commercial college that the young Pulver was allowed to take acting lessons. She would go on to have a glittering international career. It was especially in post-war Germany where the smiling Swiss belle became a star of the silver screen, thanks to films like “I Often Think of Piroschka”. The Swiss public took her to their hearts in the 1950s, when she played the wholesome maid Vreneli in the Gotthelf adaptations “Uli the Farmhand” and “Uli the Tenant”. She later proved how talented and versatile an actress she was in the French New Wave film “The Nun” – and in American director Billy Wilder’s comedy “One, Two, Three”, in which she pulls off a dancing tabletop parody of Marilyn Monroe. In her private life, Pulver took some hard blows, with her daughter committing suicide and her husband dying of a heart attack. However, the 90-year-old recently denied press reports claiming that she was very lonely. “I am very satisfied with my life overall,” she said, adding that she still has plenty of reasons to burst into that legendary laughter every day.