Famous Swiss Women

Known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, Tina Turner was one of the best-selling recording artists of all time and had a very long and successful career. Let's Stay Together, What's Love Got to Do with It, Private Dancer and Golden Eye are some of her chartbuster songs. She was also a songwriter and had acted in films too.

Swiss tennis sensation Martina Hingis made waves when she won the Australian Open at age 16, becoming the youngest Grand Slam singles winner of the 20th century. The youngest world number 1, too, she was named after Martina Navratilova and was the daughter of a Czech tennis player and a tennis coach.

Swiss actress, yesteryear model and sex symbol Ursula Andress gained attention playing Honey Ryder, widely regarded as the first Bond girl, in the first James Bond film titled Dr. No. In the ensuing years, she bolstered her career starring in films like The Southern Star, Clash of the Titans, and particularly as Vesper Lynd in spy parody film Casino Royale.    

Born to a music producer father, Cameron McVey, and a singer mother, Neneh Cherry, Mabel McVey was destined to make a career in music. The English singer-songwriter debuted on SoundCloud with her track Know Me Better. It is believed she had initially used music as a therapy for her anxiety.

Mirka Federer is a Swiss former tennis player best known as the wife of legendary tennis player Roger Federer whom she met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Having supported Federer throughout his career, Mirka is often praised for being a pillar of strength and is largely credited for Roger Federer's achievements on the tennis court. 

Kate Burton is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Ellis Grey in the popular medical drama television series, Grey's Anatomy. The daughter of famous actors, Sybil Christopher and Richard Burton, Kate is also renowned for her stage work and has received three Tony Award nominations so far. 

Best known for her pathbreaking bestseller On Death and Dying, Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross also made pioneering research in areas such as near-death studies. Her five stages of grief, or the Kübler-Ross model, has been adopted by corporates to help employees deal with loss and change.

Known for her tactics and positions on field, Swiss tennis star Belinda Bencic first made waves when she made it to the US Open quarterfinal at age 17. Her aggressive style of play has already helped her win 5 singles titles, including an Olympic gold medal.

Sofia Milos is an Italian Greek actress and model best known for her portrayal of Yelina Salas in the popular American police procedural TV series, CSI: Miami. Before establishing herself as an actress, Milos entered several beauty pageants, winning provincial, regional, and national contests.

Carla Juri is a Swiss actress best known for her role in the biographical film Paula. She studied theater in London and Los Angeles and traveled across Berlin, London, and Rome to find jobs early in her career. She started acting professionally in the mid-2000s and has since appeared in many critically acclaimed films and TV shows. 

Born in Russia, Swiss billionaire Margarita Louis-Dreyfus initially studied law and economics. She became an heir to the agricultural and food-processing commodities giant Louis-Dreyfus group after her husband Robert Louis-Dreyfus’s death. At 53, she became a mother of twins, with her partner Philipp Hildebrand. She was featured on Forbes Billionaires 2021.

Michelle Hunziker is a Swiss-Italian model, actress, and television hostess. After starting her career as a model by posing for brands, such as Armani, La Perla, and Rocco Barocco, Hunziker established herself as a TV personality, hosting popular shows like Paperissima Sprint and Colpo di Fulmine. Over the years, she has also acted in films and TV series.

Swiss-French artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp initially studied textile design and later began creating multimedia art called Duo-Collages, along with her husband, German-French abstract artist Jean Arp. Apart from teaching at an art and craft school, the Dadaist had also used dance, painting, and sculpture to showcase her artistic talent.

One of the two women founder members of London’s Royal Academy, Angelica Kauffman was born to a painter father in Switzerland and was quite a prodigy, who mastered several languages and the arts of music and painting quite quickly. The history painter is best remembered for her landscapes and portraits.

Better known as Carl Jung’s wife, Emma Jung was the daughter of one of the most affluent businessmen in Switzerland. Though she initially wished to study natural sciences, being a woman in her time, she couldn’t. Later a co-owner of a luxury watch company, she helped her husband financially in his career.

While her younger fans loved her earlier content that focused on looking doll-like, Swiss YouTuber Venus Palermo, better known as Venus Angelic, later began limiting her content to the adult platform OnlyFans. Apparently, her old content had been controlled by her mother, and Venus drifted away from her later.

Johanna Spyri made a significant contribution to children’s literature with her novel Heidi. After the death of her husband and her child, the Swiss author focused on charitable causes. A professor later claimed Heidi had been plagiarized by Spyri, though later studies proved the claim was baseless.

While Simonetta Sommaruga has been the president of Switzerland, she is also a talented pianist, trained at the Lucerne School of Music. She later dropped out of a university English course. She has also been the director of the Consumer Protection Foundation and part of committees on energy and the environment.

While she gained recognition with the folk metal band Eluveitie, which she joined at age 16, Swiss musician Anna Murphy later also led the 3-member folk rock band Cellar Darling. Born to opera singer parents, she was never a stranger to music. Proficient in hurdy-gurdy, she also plays the flute at times.

Denied formal education for being a woman, Toni Wolff later became one of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s closest collaborators. She entered Jung’s life as a patient of depression after her father’s death. She later headed the Psychologischer Club Zürich as its president and is often described as an intellectual rival of Jung’s wife.

Aomi Muyock is a Swiss actress who is renowned for her portrayal of Electra in the 2015 erotic drama art film, Love. The film achieved fame and notoriety for its unsimulated and often unchoreographed sex scenes. In addition to appearing in films, Aomi Muyock also pursues her interest in arts. 

Irène Jacob is a French-Swiss actress best known for her collaboration with Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. In 1991, she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for the Kieślowski movie, The Double Life of Veronique. The following year, Irène Jacob received a César Award nomination under the Best Actress category for the film. 

Known for her stint with the WSA club Aston Villa, Swiss footballer Alisha Lehmann was always openly lesbian and even gearing up for a wedding with her Swiss teammate Ramona Bachmann. She later stunned her fans with an Instagram post, confirming her relationship with Brazilian midfielder Douglas Luiz.

Swiss-born Simone Tata met her husband, Naval H. Tata., the adopted son of Sir Ratanji Tata and part of the Tata Group, on a trip to India. She later joined the board of Lakmé and transformed the Indian make-up industry, which, till then, relied on nothing more than cream and talcum powder.

With a career-high ranking of 36 in singles, Swiss tennis player Viktorija Golubic is definitely showing a lot of promise. While she began training in the game at age 5, she now has an Olympic doubles silver medal in her kitty, and that too, in her debut Olympic game, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Spanish-born Swiss-origin tennis player Jil Teichmann not only experimented with various sports in her early days, before choosing tennis, but also learned 5 languages. With a career-best singles ranking of 31, she has 2 WTA singles and 6 ITF singles titles in her kitty. She has also defeated stars such as Naomi Osaka.

Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress best known for her portrayal of Elsa Opel in the 1976 film Marathon Man, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination under the Best Supporting Actress category. Marthe Keller is also renowned for her theater and opera work. She made her debut as an opera director with Dialogues des Carmélites in 1999.

Ladyva began learning the piano at 14 and is now one of the greatest boogie woogie musicians of all time. In April 2020, the Swiss artist performed a piano piece, Quarantine Boogie, from her home, owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. The piece got her 100,000 YouTube hits in less then 5 days.

Though a qualified psychologist, Milo Moire is more popular as a porn actor and a performance artist who uses the female form for her art pieces. From creating abstract art by throwing out paint-filled eggs from her vagina, to walking around cities, asking passers-by to touch her breasts, she has done it all.

Pipilotti Rist is a Swiss visual artist renowned for producing experimental installation art and video art. Categorized as feminist art, Rist's artwork is also described as abstract art, intimate, and surreal. Over the years, Pipilotti Rist's work has earned her prestigious awards like the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Joan Miró Prize, and Best Architects '11 Award.

South African-born Daniela Di Lillo, or Nora En Pure, grew up in Switzerland, where she was introduced to music as a child. Now a world-renowned sensation in electronic music, she is known as the Queen of Deep House. The International Dance Music Award winner was previously also part of the Helvetic Nerds.