Marthe Keller

Marthe Keller, born on 28 January 1945, is a Swiss actress, classical music speaker, and opera director. She is best known for her role in the 1976 film Marathon Man, for which she received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award.

As a child, Keller studied ballet, but she stopped following a skiing accident at the age of 16. She subsequently changed her focus to acting and worked in Berlin at both the Schiller Theater and the Berliner Ensemble.

Keller's earliest film appearances included an uncredited role in Funeral in Berlin in 1966 and a part in the German film Wilder Reiter GmbH in 1967. During the 1970s, she appeared in a series of French films, including Un Cave in 1971, La Raison du Plus Fou in 1973, and Toute Une Vie, also known as And Now My Love, in 1974.

Her most prominent American film roles came in the late 1970s. She delivered a Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman's girlfriend in Marathon Man in 1976. In 1977, she portrayed a femme fatale Palestinian terrorist leading an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday. That same year, she starred alongside Al Pacino in the romantic drama Bobby Deerfield, which was based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Heaven Has No Favorites. In 1978, she acted opposite William Holden in Billy Wilder's romantic drama Fedora. Following 1978, Keller performed more frequently in European cinema, including the 1987 film Dark Eyes with Marcello Mastroianni. In April 2016, she served as the president of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2001, Keller performed on Broadway in an all-star adaptation of Abby Mann's play Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by John Tillinger. She played Mrs. Bertholt, the role previously portrayed by Marlene Dietrich in the 1961 film version, and earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress.

Keller has also established a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of Joan of Arc in Arthur Honegger's oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher alongside conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur, and recorded the piece for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa. She recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky's Perséphone and performed classical melodramas in recital. Composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama Cassandre, based on Christa Wolf's novel, for Keller, who performed its world premiere in 1994. Keller made her opera directing debut with Dialogues des Carmélites for Opéra national du Rhin in 1999, followed by directing Lucia di Lammermoor for Washington National Opera and Los Angeles Opera, and Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera in 2004.

Keller has one son, Alexandre, born in 1972 from her relationship with director Philippe de Broca. She also dated director Claude Lelouch and actor Al Pacino.