Around 1915, she met Austrian dramaturge and screenwriter Carl Mayer in Vienna who then took her to Berlin and helped her to gain an engagement as a stage actress at the Residenz Theatre.

Her first film role was in the 1917 Alexander Antalffy- and Paul Leni-directed drama The Mystery of Bangalore, opposite actors Conrad Veidt and Harry Liedtke.

[3] In 1919, Gilda Langer was cast to play the role of Jane in the Robert Wiene-directed and Carl Mayer- and Hans Janowitz-penned German Expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Langer's last film role was in the 1919 drama The Woman with Orchids, written by Fritz Lang and directed by Otto Rippert.

Langer fell ill with a lung infection after contracting the Spanish flu shortly after this engagement[5] and died on 31 January 1920, aged 23.