Elfie Fiegert
Elfie (Elfriede) Fiegert (born 1946) is an Afro-German film actor who became famous as a child actor for playing the lead role in the film Toxi (1952) filmed when she was five years old. This was followed in 1955 with the film The Dark Star which has erroneously been described as sequel.[1]:124–5 At the age of seventeen she had a small role in The House in Montevideo (1963).
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Toxi
Elfie did not receive a credit for a role in Toxi.[2] She was described as playing herself. The publicity for the film suggested that the story of the film reflected Elfie's own origins, and she came to use the stage name Toxi.[1]
The name also Toxi became widely used as shorthand in the German media when referring to Afro-Germans and their social condition.[1]:130
Later career
Reflecting upon Elfie's career as an example of racial stereotyping, Heide Fehrenbach suggests that whilst as a child actor, Elfie was typecast as a black child of the US occupation of Germany post 1945; the onset of puberty meant that she became exoticised, sexualised and geographically removed from Germany.[1]:127
In 1964, she married a Nigerian student in Munich who did not allow her to star in films. After they divorced, she resumed her acting career. She also appeared in documentaries on CBS and NBC. In 1986, it was reported she had remarried, living in Mallorca for the past 9 years and visiting Germany infrequently. [3]
Filmography[3]
- Toxi (1952)
- Stars Over Colombo (1953)
- The Dark Star (1955)
- Two Bavarians in the Harem (1957)
- Our Nifty Aunts (1961)
- The House in Montevideo (1963)
- Our Nifty Aunts in the South Pacific (1963)
- Our Crazy Aunts in the South Seas (1964)
- Salto Mortale (1969)
- NBC Experiment in Television: Color Me German (1969)
- Our Doctor is the Best (1969)
- Half and Half: Mischlinge in Germany (1972)