Sisi on W9: Did the Emperor’s Trustee Exist?

In the final holiday season of this year, W9 decided to immerse us in the Christmas spirit by airing the first season of Sissi, a much more modern and poignant retelling of the story of young Elisabeth de Wittelsbach.

Already proposed in December 2021 on TF1, this series did not delay Internet users who were surprised and even shocked to find some very daring scenes from the first minutes.

And the grand finale of the first season, which will be broadcast on Tuesday, December 26, will be no exception to this rule, as it will be the scene of an intimate scene between the Empress and her maid Fanny.

If we strongly doubt that this scene actually happened, does that mean that the character of this whore-turned-whore is completely fictional? He and not.

Not so fictional character…

Unlike Ernst Marischka’s films, Sisi’s screenwriters tried to stay true to the real story of the empress and did not hesitate to undermine the idealized image that people have been able to build up over the years. But, as fiction requires, screenwriters still take liberties by adding or changing certain elements to bring drama and captivate the audience. And Fan’s character, played by Paula Kober, is direct proof of that.

In the first episode, while Sissy (Dominic Davenport) follows Franz Joseph on horseback, she finds the emperor stopping to go to a brothel. Young Elizabeth then decides to pay a lady to get sexual advice to satisfy her future husband. Later, when he had to go to the Viennese court, he made her his servant and confidante. A story that was, of course, completely fictional.

But there was definitely a fan in Sisi’s life. Franziska “Fan” Feifalik comes from a modest family. Like his father, he learned the profession of a hairdresser. Very quickly, his talent and skill allowed him to be noticed and he was hired as a hairdresser in a theater in Vienna.

It was during the performance that Sisi met the empress, who was fascinated by the hairstyle of the main actor and wanted to meet her. Sissy then hires a fan as her personal hairdresser. Spending almost three hours a day with the empress during the toilet, he quickly became her confidant and accompanied her on all her trips, which made some of the ladies-in-waiting jealous.

The two young women were not only the same age, but they looked very much alike. Therefore, Sisi sometimes used Fani as a double, the young woman replacing him several times during official events abroad.

The empress did not hesitate to break the rules of her friend and hairdresser. When Fan married, she was allowed to continue working for Sissi, while the empress’s companions were to be alone. In December 1896, two years before Sissy’s death, Fan finally retired after more than thirty years of good and faithful service.

Now find the entire first season of Sissi on Salto.