Terry Prone: Riefenstahl's confected reputation is destroyed by her own evidence

Originally published in the Irish Examiner.

Published in 1986, it was just a few pages shy of 700, filled with the strongly-recollected memories — and photographs — of a woman then 84 years old but with 17 more years to live.

This was the autobiography of a woman who overcame a ghastly childhood to become an award-winning, genre-defining film director, and her story, as told by herself, was one of triumph, hard work, being underestimated, and fighting to get her own way.

Leni Riefenstahl’s father was the first of her problems. He hated that she was a girl rather than the boy he wanted. Plus he was a bullying control freak.

“He could easily lose his temper if he did not get his own way, especially with my mother and me, but people as a rule did not dare to contradict him,” she remembered. 

“He took charge everywhere … he had the final say about anything.”

If a man looked at his teenage daughter in the street, her father would instantly blame her, yelling: “Keep your eyes down; don’t look at men that way.” 

She suffered teenage depression, coped with his paternal envy of her theatrical ambitions (probably stimulated by him having thwarted ambitions to act) — and as soon as she could, at the age of 21, abandoned her family and stayed clear of them from then on. 

"She became an athlete, a dancer, and an actor and was very successful in all three areas."

Click here for the full article.