Zita Johann (born Elizabeth Johann; 14 July 1904 – 24 September 1993) was an Austrian-American actress. She is known for her role in Karl Freund's film The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff.
A German-speaking Banat Swabian, Zita Johann was born Elizabeth Johann in the village of Deutschbentschek (near Timișoara), Austria-Hungary. The village is now part of Romania. Her father, a hussar officer named Stefan Johann, emigrated with his family to the United States in 1911.[2]
She debuted on Broadway in 1924 and made her first film appearance in D.W. Griffith's 1931 film The Struggle. After seven films, she quit to work in theatre, collaborating with John Houseman, to whom she was married from 1929 to 1933, and with Orson Welles. She also taught acting to people with learning disorders.[1]
She made her last film appearance in the 1986 horror film Raiders of the Living Dead.
Johann married three times. In 1962, she was a guest artist at Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack, New York, where she directed Don Juan In Hell.
Johann died from pneumonia at a hospital in Nyack, New York, on 24 September 1993, aged 89.[1] She was cremated and her ashes were scattered on a family farm in upstate New York.
