Marlene Schmidt (born 11 November 1937) is a German control engineer, actress, TV host and beauty queen who won Miss Universe 1961. Born in Breslau, Germany and raised in East Germany, where she earned a master's degree in engineering, in 1960, she and her family fled to Stuttgart in West Germany, where she got a job as an electronics engineer. In 1961, she entered the state pageant of Baden-Württemberg in the hope of winning the car that was offered as prize. From there, she went on to represent her state in the national pageant in Baden-Baden, where she was crowned Miss Germany 1961. She then went on to win the Miss Universe pageant against 47 other participants. She was at that time the tenth consecutive German entrant to reach the semifinals of the event (then a record) and is the first (and to date only) German to be crowned Miss Universe. In 1962, Schmidt became the third of eight wives of the American actor Ty Hardin. They settled in the United States. The marriage lasted until 1966. They had one daughter, Schmidt's only child. She continued her engineering career for a while, and in 1967 was a technical consultant for Sier-Bath Gear Co, New Jersey. From 1972 to 1986, Schmidt was involved in the movie industry, where she acquired credits as actress, producer and writer in eleven productions. None of the films achieved particular merit for plot or other production values apart from generally offering a liberal dose of female nudity, albeit the 1972 skin-fest The Stepmother distinguished itself by receiving an Oscar nomination for its musical score. Eventually Schmidt returned to Germany, where she lives in Saarbrücken. Filmography Marlene Schmidt was involved in the following movies as actress and producer: 1972: The Stepmother ¹ 1974: The Teacher ¹ 1975: The Specialist ² 1975: Dr. Minx ¹ 1976: Scorchy ¹ 1978: Texas Detour ¹ 1978: The Fifth Floor ² 1981: Separate Ways ² 1983: Mortuary ¹ 1984: They're Playing with Fire ² 1986: Kidnapped ¹ ¹ actress and producer ² additional writing credit References Further reading Veit Didczuneit, Dirk Külow: Miss Germany. Die deutsche Schönheitskönigin. S & L MedienContor, Hamburg, 1998; External links Article in Der Spiegel (2001 / German) 1937 births 20th-century German actresses East German emigrants to West Germany German beauty pageant winners German emigrants to the United States German film actresses Living people Miss Universe 1961 contestants