Sad news. Leo was really close to his grandmother and talked about her all the time. My prayers go out to the family. R.I.P.
Leonardo DiCaprio's Grandmother Dies at 93
Leonardo DiCaprio's maternal grandmother Helene Indenbirken has died at the age of 93.
Indenbirken passed away in a hospital in her native North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Indenbirken's local paper, the
Recklinghauser Zeitung, reports.
A cause of death has not yet been reported.
Leo was very close to Indenbirken — the wife of a coal miner — whom he often referred to as "Oma."
The two would see each other whenever DiCaprio was in Europe (he was photographed August 4 on a yacht in Ibiza, Spain). She also accompanied him to many movie premieres, including 2005's
The Aviator.
"I love spending time with her because she is gangsta, with an 'a,'" he told
Vanity Fair in 2004. "She will tell people exactly what she thinks to their face."
DiCaprio told
Vanity Fair his grandmother also saved his mother's life.
A toddler during World War II, his mother, Irmelin, suffered a broken leg. His grandmother nursed her back to health in a German hospital.
"All these refugees from the war and all the soldiers came into the hospital," DiCaprio told
Vanity Fair. "She ended up contracting five or six major illnesses and stayed for two and a half, three years.
"My grandmother basically came every day and nursed her back to health because the nurses didn't have time."
usmagazine.com