Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108

 obituary, opera, theatre  Add comments
Dec 262011
 
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108

Herr Heesters Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108Dutch born actor and opera tenor Johannes Heesters died Decem­ber 24 only a few weeks after his 108th birth­day. He was believed to be the old­est act­ive actor in the world.

He was born on Decem­ber 5, 1903 in Amers­foort, Neth­er­lands. Heesters deb­uted on the stage at the Volk­sop­ers (People’s Opera) in 1934 in Vienna; but made his mark on the stage dur­ing the 1930s in Ber­lin – some­thing he was later har­assed about – where he was a favour­ite of theatre goers at the Kimis­che Oper and Admir­alspalast. He con­tin­ued to be a pop­u­lar per­former in Ger­many well into his old age; con­tinu­ing to per­form well past 100. Heesters said that sit­ting around wait­ing for life’s aches and pains was wrong and life was meant to be lived.

Although Heesters was will­ing to ply his trade in Nazi Ger­many, he was never accused of spread­ing pro­pa­ganda. But his fel­low coun­try­men in the Neth­er­lands thought Heesters irre­deem­able, it would be 44 years before the actor would again per­form in his nat­ive land in 2008.

Speak­ing on his war­time activ­it­ies Heesters said, “what did I do wrong? Sure, I acted in films in the Third Reich, enter­tain­ment films, which dis­trac­ted count­less people inside and out­side Ger­many from daily life dur­ing war.” He con­tin­ued, “Sure, I wanted to make my career and I remem­ber well at the time how many people in the Neth­er­lands were proud that I made a career in the huge neigh­bour­ing coun­try. But apart from my career – and the fact that , through no fault of my own, Adolf Hitler was one of the fans of my art – what have I done?” He is repor­ted to have been Hitler’s favour­ite actor.

Heesters made his screen debut in 1924 with “Cirque Hol­landais”. It would be another 10 years before he would again appear on the screen, but from that point on he appeared in 90 movies and tele­vi­sion shows up to 2008. Heesters last film appear­ance was a short earlier this year.

After the war, Heesters became an Aus­trian citizen.

Photo: Johannes Heesters at 105 in a 2008 pro­duc­tion of the oper­etta The White Horse Inn in Ham­burg by Ubrecht Rudos [CC-BY-SA-3.0-nl], via Wiki­me­dia Commons

Share
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Oldest active actor and tenor dies at 108

 Leave a Reply

(required)

(required)

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Pinterest