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German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 2255. Photo: Mac Walten, Berlin.

Martha Orlanda (1886- 1970) was a German silent film actress and screenwriter.

Martha Orlanda was born Matyha Schlinkmann in 1886 in Marchienne-au-Pont, Belgium. She first attended elementary school and then a secondary school for girls. There are claims that she auditioned at the age of 13 at the Residenz Theatre in Cologne to perform there. The girl was eventually hired for a monthly salary of 75 marks. However, her relatives ended this ‘experiment’ after a year. In 1917, the 30-year-old moved to Berlin with her mother, Josephine Schlinkmann, where William Kahn discovered her and brought her in front of the camera. Martha Orlanda made her silent film debut alongside Izza Dombronowska in Der Fall Dombronowska-Clemenceau, the film adaptation of a literary work by Alexandre Dumas. That year, another film adaptation was made in Italy, called Il processo Clemenceau (1917), starring the diva Francesca Bertini.

By the end of 1921, Martha Orlanda had made twelve films, for which she also wrote the screenplays. Otto Rippert's highly speculative two-part educational and social drama Der Weg, der zur Verdammnis führt / The Road to Damnation (1919) caused a major scandal when it premiered. Her other silent films also dealt predominantly with dramatic or melodramatic themes. In 1922, Martha Orlanda ended her short-lived film career. On 26 September 1924, she married Theodor Schulte-Holthausen (1889–1945), a lawyer and then senior government official at the Reichsversorgungsgericht (Reich Supply Court). They had a son in 1926. Her husband died in Soviet captivity a few months after the end of the Second World War. Martha Orlanda continued to live in Berlin-Wilmersdorf until the mid-1950s, before moving to Heessen in Westphalia to be with her son and his family. At the age of 80, she finally moved to a retirement home in the pilgrimage town of Neviges, where she had many friends. The former actress died there in May 1970.

Sources: IMDb and Wikipedia (German).

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