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Steffi Duna

Hungarian-born actress (1910–1992)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ2024883
Source-derived summary

Steffi Duna (born Erzsébet Berindey; 8 February 1910 – 22 April 1992) was a Hungarian-born film actress.

Hungarian dancer

Born in the Eastern name order in Budapest of Czech extraction and nicknamed Stefi (Stefánia) by her friends and family, Duna started dancing at the age of nine and first attracted attention as a thirteen-year-old ballet dancer in Europe. She made her first stage appearance in dramatized fairy tales at the Children's Theater of Budapest. Initially opposed to the idea, her father sent her to the best schools in the Hungarian capital to learn dancing, and soon she had danced in most of the capitals of Europe.

In 1932, she appeared on the London stage in Noël Coward's revue Words and Music as one of the four actresses to create the song "Mad about the Boy".

Film actress

When she came to Hollywood in 1932, Duna could not speak a word of English. She made up her mind to learn quickly. Directors advised her to stay away from her Hungarian friends to speed up her learning. Within a few years, she could speak not only English but five other languages.

During the 1930s, she played a variety of nationalities.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Steffi Duna” is hungarian-born actress (1910–1992). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Steffi, Duna and Hungarian-born, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1910, 1992, 1932—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1910-02-08. For this dossier, Steffi, Duna and Hungarian-born is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “hungarian-born actress (1910–1992)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2024883. VIAF identifies the subject as 38379818. The Library of Congress control number is n85378933. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1992 and 1932.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Steffi Duna”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Steffi Duna primary sources, Steffi Duna archive and Steffi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Steffi Duna”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Steffi Duna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.