NUK (clown)

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Clown Nuk (1970)

NUK, actually Georg Spillner (born July 14, 1908 in Jena , † May 1, 1998 in Eichenau near Munich) was a German music clown.

Life

Georg Spillner was the son of a small textile dealer. After studying medicine, he took over a dental practice in Kahla in 1932 . He became a Thuringian master in hammer throwing . He also played the oboe in the orchestra club. From there he started his career as a clown.

NUK achieved initial success in 1937 at the Deutsches Theater in Munich , which celebrated him as “Europe's greatest clown”. His trademarks were a large, plaid coat, in which all sorts of musical instruments were hidden, and a huge suitcase. NUK was one of the few great clowns of its time and was considered the most important musical clown of the 20th century. He performed across Europe until the 1980s. NUK celebrated great successes in the Hamburg Hansa Theater , in the Olympia in Paris or in the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin.

NUK was a quiet clown; he didn't need to be foolish or stupid. At times he was compared to the Swiss clown Grock , even though Spillner never met him and presented something incomparable and independent in his stage program. Due to his extraordinary musicality - NUK played various instruments: violin, clarinet, flute, harmonica, concertina, mandolin and saxophone - and his outstanding comic talent, he managed to inspire thousands of his viewers all over Europe. His wife NUKeline accompanied him on the piano for many years. He was on stage with Josephine Baker , cabaret artist Werner Finck and chansonist Jacques Brel . In 1950 he worked alongside Carl Raddatz , Inge Meysel and Hannelore Schroth in the feature film Taxi-Kitty . Clown NUK celebrated a comeback in 1986 when, at the age of 78, he appeared on André Heller's German tour Salut for Olga , where he was the highlight of his show.

Spillner performed as a clown while studying dentistry.

Quotes

In literature, opera and operetta there is the cliché that in private life the clown is in truth a constantly melancholy person who still has to play the joker on stage and externally. Like most prejudices and standard patterns, they sound good, but they rarely have anything to do with the reality of the individual - and nothing at all with me. "

" You don't learn to be a clown, you are one and - if you work on it and do well - you become better and better."

" I am the best clown in the world among dentists - and the best dentist among the clowns in the world."

Honors

  • Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (January 7, 1991), for his social commitment in favor of former circus artists

Filmography

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Clown NUK. In: hilfsgemeinschaft-bayerischer-artisten.de. Retrieved August 31, 2015 .
  2. ^ Klaus Brendel: Hammer throwing in Jena. From the beginnings to the heyday; Part 1: The years up to 1945 (= Jena contributions to sport), Jena 2010, p. 24.
  3. ↑ Office of the Federal President