Claiming to be inspired by Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II, she became known as the "mother of Munich's subculture" as producer and performer of avant-garde theater and cabaret revues, particularly with her troupe Opera Curiosa.

Spotted by director Percy Adlon in a 1977 production of Adele Spitzeder in which she essayed the role of a delicate prostitute, Sägebrecht was cast as Madame Sanchez/Mrs.

Sancho Panza in Adlon's TV special Herr Kischott (1979), a spin on Don Quixote.

Returning to Germany, she played a timid maid in the 1930s who marries her Jewish employer for convenience then falls in love in Martha and I (1990; released in the USA in 1995).

Sägebrecht headlined the black comedy as an unhappy wife whose straying husband plots her death in Mona Must Die (1994) and had small supporting parts in The Ogre (1996) and Left Luggage (1998).