In 1923, she made her film debut in Der Evangelimann. With the rise of Nazism, Bergner moved to London with Director Paul Czinner, and they married in 1933. Her stage work in London included The Boy David (1936) by J.M. Barrie, his last play, which he wrote especially for her, and Escape Me Never by Margaret Kennedy. Catherine the Great was banned in Germany because of the government's racial policies, reported Time on March 26, 1934.
She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for Escape Me Never (1935). She repeated her stage role of Rosalind, opposite Laurence Olivier's Orlando, in the 1936 film As You Like It, the first sound film version of Shakespeare's play, and the first sound film of any Shakespeare play filmed in England. Miss Bergner had previously only played the role on the German stage, and several critics found that her accent got in the way of their enjoyment of the film, which was not a success. She returned intermittently to the stage, for instance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1946.
Bergner is considered by several critics to be the inspiration for the character of Margo Channing in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's classic film, All About Eve. Bergner had a real-life incident about a would-be Eve Harrington when Bergner was performing in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1943). Bergner helped a young Actress, and the Actress "took over" Bergner's life. Bergner recounted the story to Writer Mary Orr, who based a short story "The Wisdom of Eve" (1946) in Cosmopolitan magazine on Bergner's experience.
In 1973, she starred in the Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winner for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film of 1974, Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian). Bergner temporarily returned to Germany in 1954, where she acted in movies and on the stage; the Berlin district of Steglitz named a city park after her. In 1980, Austria awarded her the Cross of Merit for Science and Art and, in 1982, she won the Eleonora Duse Prize Asolo.
She later moved to London, where she died aged 88 from cancer. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 15 May 1986. Her ashes lie in the West Cloister and have an oval memorial tablet.
