Lída Baarová (born Ludmila Babková; 7 September 1914 – 27 October 2000) was a Czech actress who for two years was the mistress of the Nazi propaganda minister of Germany, Joseph Goebbels.

Her mother sang in a choir and appeared in several theatre plays; her younger sister, Zorka Janů (1921–1946), also became a film actress.

She turned them down under pressure from the Nazi authorities, but later regretted it and claimed to her biographer, Josef Škvorecký: "I could have been as famous as Marlene Dietrich."

Hitler intervened on 16 August 1938 and rebuked his minister, stating that in view of his "perfect marriage" as well as the coming annexation of the Sudetenland, his affair with a Czech actress was an impossibility.

Baarová was told by the Berlin chief of police Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff that she had to quit her relationship with Goebbels immediately and was prohibited from performing on Hitler's direct order.

[2] Paid shills yelled out "Get out, minister's whore" when Baarová's character appeared on the screen at the premiere of Der Spieler ("The Gambler"), and did not stop until the showing was halted.

Followed by the Gestapo wherever she went, ordered by Helldorf to stop making public appearances, and pressed by her friends, in the winter of 1938–39 Baarová fled back to Prague.

[2] There, she was temporarily allowed to perform under German occupation and, in 1942, moved to Italy, where she starred in such films as Grazia (1943), La Fornarina (1944), Vivere ancora (1945) and others.

[citation needed] In Austria in 1949, the actress attempted a comeback, but when the Austrian-British actor Anton Walbrook withdrew from a film where he was cast with her, she left for Argentina to escape the resulting negative media.

Baarová suffered from Parkinson's disease and died in 2000 in Salzburg, while living alone on the estate she inherited after the death of her second husband, Dr. Lundwall.