Karin Gregorek

Actor

Karin Gregorek (1941 to 2023) was a German actress whose career was closely linked to film and television in the GDR and later to German television as a whole. After training at the State Drama School in Berlin Niederschöneweide, she worked on stage and became a defining face of DEFA cinema from the late 1960s onwards. Her strength lay in striking yet human characters, often with dry humor and great precision. She is particularly well known for her performance as Fräulein Pittuhn in the children's film OTTOKAR DER WELTVERBESSERER (1977, directed by Hans Kratzert). There she portrays the school environment with subtle humor and a clear attitude. One of her most impressive roles was as head nurse Walburga in Einer trage des anderen Last ... (1988, directed by Lothar Warneke). For this performance, she received the award for Best Supporting Actress at the 1988 National Feature Film Festival of the GDR. Other important milestones in her film career include DEFA productions such as Eine Pyramide für mich (A Pyramid for Me, 1975), Die Flucht (The Escape, 1977), Einer muss die Leiche sein (Someone Must Be the Corpse, 1978), Die Gänse von Bützow (The Geese of Bützow, 1985), and Die Beteiligten (The Participants, 1988). After 1990, Gregorek remained a sought-after character actress on television, appearing in Polizeiruf 110 and series such as Liebling Kreuzberg, Wolffs Revier, and Schnäblein Spraffke. Her work is characterized by a mixture of down-to-earthness, sharpness, and empathy that continues to resonate in her roles to this day.