11 Facts About Lotte Berk

Lieselotte "Lotte" Berk was a German-born dancer and teacher, who lived in England from 1938.

Lotte Berk was born Lieselotte Heymansohn on 13 January 1913, in Cologne, Germany, to a German mother and Russian-born father, both of whom were Jewish.

Lotte Berk's mother died of a stroke when Lotte was aged eight; her father, Nicolai Heymansohn, had been a tailor and owned a chain of menswear shops.

Lotte Berk initially studied the piano for 11 years, according to her father's wishes, but she preferred dancing and went on to train under modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman.

At 18, Lotte was dancing with prominent companies, for famous choreographers and conductors including Carl Ebert, Bruno Walter and Fritz Busch, and at such events as the Salzburg Festival in Austria.

In 1933, she married a fellow dancer Ernst Lotte Berk, and their daughter Esther was born the following year.

In 1959, at the age of 46, Lotte Berk opened a women-only exercise studio in London: the Manchester Street Studio for Exercise.

Lotte Berk married again, to Herbert Felix Rieser, a commercial photographer, in 1964; the second marriage lasted three weeks, though they maintained a lasting friendship.

Lotte Berk continued to teach her method of exercise well into her 80s.

Lotte Berk's clients included Joan Collins, Britt Ekland, Barbra Streisand, Sian Phillips, Edna O'Brien and Yasmin Le Bon.

Lotte Berk died aged 90 on 4 November 2003 at the Brendoncare Foundation, Froxfield, Wiltshire.