Hanna Ralph was born in
Bad Kissingen, Germany, she made her stage debut in 1913 at the
Schauspielhaus in
Frankfurt. From 1914 to 1915 she was engaged at the
Staatstheater Mainz and in 1916 at the City Theater in
Hamburg. In 1917 she began working on various stages in
Berlin. Hanna Ralph made her screen debut in the 1917
Ludwig Beck-directed short
Die entschleierte Maja, opposite actor
Walter Janssen and the following year had a starring role in director
Georg Jacoby's
Keimendes Leben, Teil 1, opposite
Emil Jannings. The film serial was followed by
Keimendes Leben, Teil 2 in 1919. One of her most popular roles during her early years in films was that of the role of Katarina in
Carl Froelich's 1921 film adaptation of
Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel
Die Brüder Karamasoff (
The Brothers Karamazov), with actors
Fritz Kortner and
Bernhard Goetzke. In 1924 she appeared in the
Herbert Wilcox-directed romantic drama
Decameron Nights opposite American stage and screen actor
Lionel Barrymore, and in
Fritz Lang's silent fantasy film
Die Nibelungen, based on the epic poem
Nibelungenlied, as
Brunhild. In 1926 she appeared in the internationally successful
F.W. Murnau-directed,
Universum Film AG (UFA) distributed
Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage opposite
Gösta Ekman,
Camilla Horn and ex-husband Emil Jannings. Hanna Ralph's career withstood the transition to
sound film, however she appeared in only three films of the 1930s; instead, she spent much of the decade in theatre. By the
Second World War she retired from acting. After the war's end, she briefly returned to film in the early 1950s; appearing in small roles in director
Wolfgang Liebeneiner's 1951 crime drama
The Blue Star of the South and
Harald Reinl's 1952 drama
Behind Monastery Walls before retiring from acting altogether. ==Personal life==