Holly
28-11-2011, 04:03 AM
Today in history: 28 November 1896
She was born Lilia Sofer in Vienna. Her mother, Katharina Skala, was Catholic, and her father, Julius Sofer, was Jewish and worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Koh-i-noor Company which manufactured haberdashery machines. In the late 1930s, she was forced to flee her Nazi homeland with her husband, Louis Erich Skala, and their two young sons. (Lilia and Erich adopted the non-Jewish sounding surname of Lilia's mother.) Skala and her husband managed to escape (at different times) from Austria to England, and eventually settled in the United States.
Lilia Skala appeared on countless television shows and serials from 1952 to 1985 not too many years after toiling in a Queens zipper factory as a non-English-speaking refugee from Austria.
Her most famous role was as the Mother Superior in Lilies of the Field opposite Oscar-winning Sidney Poitier. This is the final scene in the film directed by Ralph Nelson where Homer Smith, played by Sidney Poitier leaves the nuns after building them a chapel. With one last look at the chapel he built, Smith, knowing that his work is done, slips into his car and drives quietly off into the night while the Mother Superior acts with her expressive eyes, realizing that she will surely never see him again.
Lilies of the Field - Amen - YouTube
She was born Lilia Sofer in Vienna. Her mother, Katharina Skala, was Catholic, and her father, Julius Sofer, was Jewish and worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Koh-i-noor Company which manufactured haberdashery machines. In the late 1930s, she was forced to flee her Nazi homeland with her husband, Louis Erich Skala, and their two young sons. (Lilia and Erich adopted the non-Jewish sounding surname of Lilia's mother.) Skala and her husband managed to escape (at different times) from Austria to England, and eventually settled in the United States.
Lilia Skala appeared on countless television shows and serials from 1952 to 1985 not too many years after toiling in a Queens zipper factory as a non-English-speaking refugee from Austria.
Her most famous role was as the Mother Superior in Lilies of the Field opposite Oscar-winning Sidney Poitier. This is the final scene in the film directed by Ralph Nelson where Homer Smith, played by Sidney Poitier leaves the nuns after building them a chapel. With one last look at the chapel he built, Smith, knowing that his work is done, slips into his car and drives quietly off into the night while the Mother Superior acts with her expressive eyes, realizing that she will surely never see him again.
Lilies of the Field - Amen - YouTube