Leida Rammo

Leida Rammo (18 April 1924 – 23 July 2020) was an Estonian stage, radio, television, and film actress and theatre director whose career spanned over seven decades. Early life and education Leida Rammo was the eldest of two children born in Tallinn to Magnus Siigur and Alide Marie Johanna Rammo. Her younger sister was children's author and dramaturge Helju Rammo (1926–1998). Her maternal grandmother was an Estonian Swede and her first cousin was poet Adolf Rammo. Rammo's mother supported the family as a flower seller and raised the children alone. Her parents were not married and she and her sister took their mother's maiden name. Although her father lived in Tallinn, Rammo had little interaction with him whilst growing up. Since early childhood, she was interested in theatre and had aspired to become an actress. She attended primary and secondary schools in Tallinn, graduating from Tallinn IV Gymnasium in 1942 while Estonia was under German occupation during World War II. Career Shortly after graduating from secondary school, Rammo left Estonia to work as an au pair and domestic servant for a Spanish-born woman and her German husband in Aussig, in the German-annexed Sudetenland. As the war dragged on, Rammo, along with the family, moved to Vienna, where she also studied drama until the continuation of the war forced her abandon her studies. While in Austria, she lived through the Allied air raids and the Vienna Offensive.