Martina Thomson, stage name Martina Mayne, (c. 1925–2013) was a German actress, art therapist, poet and translator, active in England. In 2009 she produced the first published translation into English of the work of the German poet Paula Ludwig.
Early life and family Martina Thomson was born Martina Schulof in Berlin around 1925 to Austrian parents.Martina Thomson. Hearing Eye. Retrieved 2 January 2018. She was educated at the Rudolf Steiner school there but travelled to London with her family just before the start of the Second World War where her uncle, George Hoellering, worked at the Academy Cinema in Oxford Street. She was evacuated to the Cotswolds during the war and afterwards trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Martina Thomson obituary. David Gentleman, The Guardian, 8 October 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
Her first marriage was short. In 1964 she married, secondly, the BBC sound producer David Thomson with whom she had three sons, Tim, Luke and Ben. She had eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild at the time of her death.
Career Under the stage name of Martina Mayne, she acted in radio plays produced for the BBC by her husband and often played foreign roles in England and English ones on German radio. In 1952 she appeared on the panel for One Minute Please, the forerunner to the BBC's long-running Just a Minute.One Minute Please. BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2017. She later provided voices for erotic films. In 1967 she appeared with Quentin Crisp as Marcella in the short surrealist film Captain Busby The Even Tenour of Her Ways based on a poem by Philip O'Connor.Captain Busby The Even Tenour of Her Ways. BFI Player. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
In the 1970s, she trained as an art therapist under E. M. Lyddiatt"Wood, Chris, "The history of art therapy and psychosis 1938–95" pp. 144–175 in and in 1989 wrote On Art and Therapy. Her poetry was published in magazines and collected in Ferryboats in 2007. In 2009 she produced the first published translation into English of the work of the German expressionist poet Paula Ludwig, whom she remembered visiting her parents' home in Berlin.
Death Mayne died from pneumonia in 2013 at the age of 88 after suffering from bone cancer.
Selected roles I'm a Stranger – Mary (1952) "The Case of the Greystone Inscription" – Millicent Channing (1955)Martina Mayne. BFI Film Forever. Retrieved 2 January 2018. Captain Busby The Even Tenour of Her Ways – Marcella (1967) - starring Quentin Crisp
Selected publications On art and therapy: An exploration. Virago, 1989. Ferryboats. Hearing Eye, London, 2007. (Torriano Meeting House Poetry Pamphlet) Panther and gazelle: Poems of Paula Ludwig. Hearing Eye, London, 2012. (Translator) My life, you see. Hearing Eye, London, 2022.
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