Maria Simon

Maria Simon (born February 6, 1976) is a German actress.

Simon's German father originally hailed from Leipzig and studied mathematics in Leningrad. There he met Simon's Russian-Jewish mother, Olga, who studied electronics and originally hailed from Kazakhstan. The couple married while studying.

Maria Simon is the younger sister of actress Susanna Simon, who was born on 23 July 1968, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Maria was born and brought up in the former East Germany, but moved to New York City in 1990 to live with her father, a computer expert with the United Nations, and her sister Dalena Simon. She also has a sister named Alyssa. Simon has four children, the first from a former relationship with the actor Devid Striesow, and three with her ex-husband, the actor Bernd Michael Lade.

After finishing school she moved back to the newly reunited Germany to study acting at the Academy of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin where she received her diploma in 1999.