Evelyn Künneke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evelyn Künneke , actually Eva-Susanne Künneke (born December 15, 1921 in Berlin ; † April 28, 2001 there ), was a German singer , dancer and actress . In scene circles she was called the last survivor of the Lili Marleen generation .

Life

Label of the shellac record Three Little Stories , 1946

The daughter of the operetta king Eduard Künneke and his wife, the opera singer Katarina Garden , received ballet lessons from Victor Gsovsky , acting lessons from Ilka Grüning , Lucie Höflich and Leslie Howard and singing lessons from Maria Ivogün . She also worked as a photo model. She learned tap dance in the Edmont Leslie step studio . In 1935 she acquired the secondary school leaving certificate at Fleck's private school in Berlin. After completing her training, she became the second solo dancer at the Berlin State Opera , but she caused a sensation as the tap dancer "Evelyn King" in Berlin cabarets and variety shows. At the age of seventeen she founded her own dance studio in Berlin in 1938 together with Horst Matthiesen .

In 1939 their appearances of this kind were banned. She now called herself Evelyn Künneke and began a career as a singer. She worked with well-known composers such as Peter Igelhoff and Michael Jary . She had her first big success in 1941 with Sing, Nachtigall, sing (from the film Auf Wiedersehn, Franziska ), which Wolfgang Borchert called his favorite song. Evelyn Künneke's hits like Have you ever kissed in the dark? were unmistakably influenced by the swing music style, which was politically frowned upon in Germany at the time, like no other German-speaking singer of that time .

During the war she often went on tours to look after the troops . From 1942 to 1944 she performed on the Eastern Front, and in early 1944 also on the Western Front. In 1944 she was arrested for defeatism and in January 1945 sent to the Berlin-Tegel prison . She was released shortly before the end of the war.

After the war she had a few years of success as a pop singer, initially also with Walter Jenson's show orchestra in 1945 at the Crusader Club in Hamburg. Her hits included Winke-winke , However - spoke the Sphinx (with the Wolf Gabbe orchestra ) and Egon . In 1953 she toured the USA. Also in 1953 she recorded the song Herr Kapellmeister, Please a Tango , which is rated as one of her greatest successes. In the hit parade of the magazine "Der Automatenmarkt" it reached number 5 in the May 1954 issue.

In 1958 she competed in the German preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest . Her star faded in the late 1950s and 1960s, and several attempts to re-establish themselves failed. In the mid-1970s, Evelyn Künneke celebrated her big comeback as an actress in the sphere of influence of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Rosa von Praunheim . As a chanson singer , she trundled through trendy bars in Berlin well into old age, together with Brigitte Mira and Helen Vita as Drei Alte Schachteln , among others . In March 1976 Evelyn Künneke recorded the single Ich bin Heinos Walküre , which was released on the Telefunken label. She did not reach a chart placement with this hit, despite frequent use in various radio stations. Künneke also released some albums, such as Sensationell (1975), Evelyn II. (1976) and Sing, Evelyn, sing! - The best of Evelyn Künneke (1978).

The daughter Evelyn is remembered on the parents' tombstone in the Heerstraße cemetery in Berlin-Westend

She was initially married to an Englishman, her daughter's father. Her second husband was Reinhard Thomanek, a business graduate from 1963 to 1972. Her third marriage was in 1979 with her manager Dieter Hatje.

Evelyn Künneke died on April 28, 2001 at the age of 79 in a clinic in Berlin-Zehlendorf of lung cancer , which had been diagnosed two months earlier. She rests in a single grave, without a tombstone, on the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend , opposite the grave of her father Eduard Künneke (grave location: II-W7-61).

By resolution of the Berlin Senate , Evelyn Künneke's final resting place has been dedicated to the State of Berlin as an honorary grave since 2018 . The dedication is valid for the usual period of twenty years, but can then be extended.

In the Charlottenburg Giesebrechtstraße 5, where she had lived in the apartment of her father until recently, a memorial plaque to them.

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Mr. Kapellmeister
  DE 5 05/01/1954 (8 weeks)

Songs

  • 1941: This song has no lyrics
  • 1941: Sing, nightingale, sing
  • 1942: Have you ever kissed in the dark?
  • 1942: The carousel
  • 1942: hocus-pocus
  • 1946: three little stories
  • 1946: I'm already looking forward to Thursday
  • 1947: It was one night in Venice
  • 1948: Farmer's rumba
  • 1948: O la la
  • 1949: Blue Monday
  • 1949: Oh yes - oh no
  • 1949: The most beautiful man from the Rio Grande
  • 1949: What is the baboon thinking?
  • 1949: Children, buy yourselves a sunstroke
  • 1949: Somewhere, sometime
  • 1949: Only available in Texas
  • 1949: Cuanto le gusta
  • 1949: Why does the zebra have stripes?
  • 1949: Barbara, Barbara, come to Africa with me
  • 1949: Indeed - spoke the Sphinx
  • 1949: What a shame, yesterday you were sweet as chocolate
  • 1950: wave-wave
  • 1950: Oh Juana
  • 1950: It wouldn't be that difficult
  • 1950: In Arizona and Arkansas
  • 1950: A little Gernarge
  • 1950: From eight to eight
  • 1950: go away
  • 1951: Don't you have a man for me?
  • 1951: Maja-Mambo
  • 1951: Don't go to the North Pole
  • 1951: Tango-Max
  • 1952: Mäckie boogie
  • 1952: Oh Mr. Kuhn
  • 1952: Hinz-und-Kunz-Boogie
  • 1952: Small tin soldier
  • 1953: Mr. Kapellmeister, a tango, please
  • 1953: Egon
  • 1954: Bongo boogie
  • 1955: tick-tack boogie
  • 1956: Hernando's Hideaway
  • 1956: Boogie in three-four time
  • 1956: Longing (Steamheat)
  • 1957: The man with the rock'n'roll sweater
  • 1976: I am Heino's Valkyrie
  • 1978: The song by Hans Albers
  • 1978: Kikilala Hawaii
  • 1996: Hoppe, Hoppe Reiter (Eurodance-Techno-Lied)

Filmography

Radio plays

literature

  • Evelyn Künneke: With feather boa and smock apron. My two lives. Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1991, ISBN 3-550-06528-0 .
  • Evelyn Künneke: Sing Evelyn sing. Review of a life. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-455-04028-4 (autobiography).
  • Wolfgang Jacobsen: Evelyn Künneke. In: Hans-Michael Bock u. a. (Ed.): CineGraph . Lexicon for German-language films. edition text + kritik, Munich 1985, volume 5 (loose-leaf collection).
  • Bernd Meyer-Rähnitz, Frank Oehme, Joachim Schütte: The "Eternal Friend" - Eterna and Amiga. The discography of the shellac records (1947–1961). Albis International Bibliophilen-Verlag, Dresden-Ústí 2006, ISBN 80-86971-10-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Crusader Club at mediasvc.ancestry.com
  2. ↑ Manfred J. Franz: German Music Charts 1954 , p. 47
  3. ↑ Jörg Amtage, Matthias Müller: All hits from Germany's charts 1954-2003. Volume 1, p. 338
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Jacobsen in CineGraph , vol. 5 with reference to Künneke's autobiography Sing, Evelyn, sing
  5. ↑ Karoline Blumberg: Last curtain for the diva - Evelyn Künneke is dead . In: Berliner Kurier . April 29, 2001. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  6. ^ According to information from the cemetery administration by telephone. See also: Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial sites . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 490.
  7. ↑ Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection: Honorary Graves of the State of Berlin (November 2018) (PDF; 413 kB), p. 48. Accessed on November 20, 2019. The grave location is indicated on the honorary grave list with 16-J-27 . Recognition and further preservation of graves as honor graves of the State of Berlin (PDF; 369 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 18/14895 of November 21, 2018, pp. 1–2 and Annex 1, p. 4. Accessed on November 20, 2019.
  8. ↑ Chart sources: DE
  9. ↑ Evelyn Künneke - Hoppe, Hoppe Reiter at ultratop.be
personal data
SURNAME Künneke, Evelyn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Künneke, Eva-Susanne (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German singer, dancer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Germany
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2001
Place of death Berlin , Germany