
Born 1931 in a castle in Westphalia, Elizabeth Caroline Maria Agatha Felicitas Therese Freiin von Furstenberg-Hedringen left Germany with her parents for New York before World War II. While attending the Hewitt School in Manhattan, she began modeling at 14 and embarked with her mother on a globe-girdling career that led to a role in an Italian film called Women Without Names, about post-World War II internees. That projected her onto the cover of Look magazine, photographed by Stanley Kubrick, for an article titled “Working Debutante.”
In 1951, she made her Broadway debut in Philip Barry’s “Second Threshold,” which earned her a spot on the cover of Life magazine as “the most promising young actress of the year”.