Bettina is the daughter of the actress Gertrude Jarand and director and drama teacher Heinz Dietrich Kenter and is of Huguenot (French Calvinist i.e Protestant) ancestry (many Huguenots had left France to flee persecution, they went to Protestant countries and Ireland which at the time was ruled by Protestant England.) Her debut was at the age of 19 playing Regina in Peter Hacks' play The Battle of Lobositz (Lobositz was a victory for the Prussian King Frederick the Great). She was the voice of Helen Lovejoy in all but one episode of the second season of the German dub of The Simpsons and in Sailor Moon's German dub plays Ikuko Tsukino.