) is a Swiss actress and opera director. She studied ballet as a child, but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble.

Keller's earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin

Funeral in Berlin (film)

Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film based on the novel Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File ...

(1966, uncredited) and the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including Un cave (1971), La raison du plus fou (1973) and Toute une vie (And Now My Love, 1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....

's girlfriend in Marathon Man

Marathon Man (film)

Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....

and her performance as a femme fatale

Femme fatale

A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...

 Arab terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

 in Black Sunday

Black Sunday (1977 film)

Black Sunday is a 1977 American thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and based on the novel by Thomas Harris. The film starred Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, and Marthe Keller and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture in 1978...

, both of them were ill-fated characters at the climax of each film. Keller also acted with William Holden

William Holden

William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...

 in the 1978 Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

 film Fedora

Fedora (film)

Fedora is a 1978 American drama film directed by Billy Wilder. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on a novella by Tom Tryon included in his collection Crowned Heads, published in 1976.-Plot:...

. She appeared alongside Al Pacino

Al Pacino

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...

 in the auto racing film Bobby Deerfield

Bobby Deerfield

Bobby Deerfield is a 1977 film based on the novel Heaven Has No Favorites by Erich Maria Remarque, and stars Al Pacino as the title character...

, and subsequently the two of them were involved in a relationship. Since then, Keller has worked more steadily in European cinema compared to American movies. Her later films include Dark Eyes, with Marcello Mastroianni

Marcello Mastroianni

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...

.

In 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann

Abby Mann

Abby Mann was an American film writer and producer.-Life and career:Born as Abraham Goodman in Philadelphia, he grew up in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was best known for his work on controversial subjects and social drama...

's play Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...

as Mrs. Bertholt (the role played by Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

 in the 1961 Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer

Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...

  film version). She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance.

In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...

 in the oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

 Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher

Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher

Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher is an oratorio by Arthur Honegger, originally commissioned by Ida Rubinstein. The drama takes place during the heroine's trial and execution, with flashbacks to her younger days...

of Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

 on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa

Seiji Ozawa

is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...

 ' and Kurt Masur

Kurt Masur

Kurt Masur is a German conductor, particularly noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music.- Biography :Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony. Masur has been married three times...

. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

 with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

's Perséphone. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital. The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell

Michael Jarrell

Michael Jarrell is a Swiss composer. Born in Geneva, he studied at the Conservatoire there, and later with Klaus Huber in Freiburg.His works span many genres...

 wrote the melodrama Cassandre, after the novel of Christa Wolf

Christa Wolf

Christa Wolf was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She is one of the best-known writers to have emerged from the former East Germany.-Biography:...

, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994.

Keller's first production as an opera director was Dialogues des Carmélites

Dialogues of the Carmelites

Dialogues of the Carmelites , is an opera in three acts by Francis Poulenc. In 1953, M. Valcarenghi approached Poulenc to commission a ballet for La Scala in Milan; when Poulenc found the proposed subject uninspiring, Valcarenghi suggested instead a screenplay by Georges Bernanos, based on the...

, for Opéra National du Rhin

Opéra national du Rhin

LOpéra national du Rhin is an opera company which performs in Alsace, eastern France, and which includes the Opéra in Strasbourg, the company's ballet in Mulhouse , and the "Opéra Studio" , a training centre for young singers, in Colmar...

, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year. She has also directed Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....

for Washington National Opera

Washington National Opera

The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...

 and for Los Angeles Opera

Los Angeles Opera

The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...

. Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 was in a 2004 production of Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

.

Keller has a son, Alexandre (born 1971), from her relationship with Philippe de Broca

Philippe de Broca

Philippe de Broca was a French film director.Born Philippe Claude Alex de Broca de Ferrussac in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of a photographer of noble origins. de Broca was a cinephile from an early age, and he studied at the l'École technique de photographie et de cinématographie...

.

Selected filmography

• Le guêpier
  Le guêpier
  Le guêpier is a 1976 French-Italian film, directed by Roger Pigaut. It stars actor Gabriele Ferzetti.- Cast :* Claude Brasseur - Renaud* Marthe Keller - Melba* Gabriele Ferzetti - Gaspard* Vicky Messica - Vava* Vittorio Sanipoli : Fossetti...
  
  (1976)
• The Amateur (1981)
• Time of the Wolf
  Time of the Wolf (2002 film)
  Time of the Wolf is a 2002 drama film about an orphan boy who goes to live with his only surviving relatives. The movie stars Burt Reynolds, Marthe Keller and Devin Douglas Drewitz. The movie was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada-Plot:...
  
  (2002)

External links

• Yahoo! Movies biography of Marthe Keller