Her background included stints as a medical lab assistant and magazine assistant editor before she found her calling in show business. 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. The director put her in his 1983 feature The Swing in a small role and then in the leading role of Marianne, an overweight mortician in love with a subway conductor, in Sugarbaby (1985).

In 1987 she co-starred in the romantic comedy Bagdad Café. American films beckoned as well and Sägebrecht was often cast in roles tailored to her unique abilities. Paul Mazursky reworked the part of a Teutonic masseuse for her in Moon over Parador (1988) while Danny DeVito tailored the part of the German housekeeper for a divorcing couple in The War of the Roses (1989).

In 1997, she was a member of the jury at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.