Brigitte Mira, 94; Singer, Actor in Fassbinder Movies

Brigitte Mira, 94, a German actress and singer who attained recognition late in her career through the films of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, died Tuesday at a Berlin hospital. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Mira was in her 60s when Fassbinder cast her in the lead role in his 1974 movie “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul,” in which she played a lonely widow who falls in love with an Arab immigrant. Mira’s performance was considered pivotal to the film’s power and accessibility.

Other Fassbinder movies she appeared in included “Fox and His Friends” (1975), “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980) and “Lili Marleen” (1981).

She had the title role in his “Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven” (1975) as a naive housewife whose husband goes on a homicidal-suicidal rampage.

After Fassbinder’s death in 1982, she worked less frequently. Her roles included playing the British queen mother in the satiric German TV production “Willi und die Windzors.”