Had two daughters, Anna and Therese, with Klaus Ackermann.
Was, from 1983, a member of the GDR's Academy of Arts.
Initially trained as a stenographer and secretary before studying acting at the film school in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1961 to 1963.
Had her greatest early successes at the Deutsches Theater Berlin in plays by Schiller, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Hauptmann and Turgenev. Active there again between 1990 and 2004.
Resides in Potsdam and has a second home on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea.