Karl Suter

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Karl Suter (born April 23, 1926 in Zurich , Switzerland ; † December 31, 1977 in Küsnacht ) was a Swiss actor , film director , screenwriter and writer with a short film career from 1959 to 1966.

Live and act

At the end of the war in 1945, Suter received an acting training in his hometown of Zurich and began to take on first roles at the Schauspielhaus Zurich at the age of 20 . He then went to the Soviet Occupation Zone to take up his first permanent position at the Volksbühne Berlin . After a season, Suter returned to Zurich and worked again as assistant director at the Zurich Schauspielhaus. In 1949 he temporarily left the stage world and made around 150 commercials in just under a decade.

In 1959 he made his debut as a movie director with Der Mustergatte , a remake of the popular English comedy classic. In his next film, The Lord with the Black Melon , he also left the main or title role to the previous year's model husband, Walter Roderer . After his own film satire about Swiss philistinism and petty bourgeois morality , Chikita , which was produced in his own production (Turnus-Film) , Suter could hardly work for the cinema anymore, his return to the big screen, the Bond film parody Bonditis , was premiered in 1967 « a fiasco on the international market and put an end to Suter's film career ». At the beginning of the 1970s he returned to directing, this time for Swiss television. In 1971 he was able to work with the two German UFA old stars Willy Birgel and Lil Dagover at Professor Sound and the Pill - The Unlikely Story of an Invention .

Even more than his short-lived cinema and television film career, Suter's work is important for Swiss entertainment theater and for television shows. He was successful as an entrepreneur in the Zurich theater industry and variety show as well as in the production of Swiss TV shows, which he realized primarily in partnership with his partner Hans Gmür . In 1959 he was involved in the opening of the theater on Hechtplatz in his hometown . In the following decade he also directed at the Schauspielhaus Zürich (1962 Die Dame mit der Brille , 1963 the world premieres of Hans Mühlethaler's An der Grenz and Georg Brun's visits ) and made a name for himself above all as an author of musicals, revues, tabloids and cabaret numbers. The Revue Holiday in Switzerland earned him the Golden Rose of Montreux .

Suter is considered to be the discoverer and supporter of the young Bruno Ganz , whom he left early roles both at the Theater am Hechtplatz and in his two films staged at the beginning of the 1960s. Karl Suter also owned a theater and film agency in Zurich and was awarded the Walo Prize for his services to the Swiss entertainment industry .

Karl Suter died of a heart attack on New Year's Eve 1977.

Filmography (complete, without TV shows)

Direction and script

  • 1959: Such a model husband
  • 1960: The gentleman with the black bowler hat
  • 1961: Chikita
  • 1962: Is Missing ... (short documentary film)
  • 1964: Race against time (short documentary film)
  • 1966: Bonditis
  • 1970: Hetzjagd (TV movie)
  • 1971: Professor Sound and the Pill - The Unlikely Story of an Invention (TV movie)
  • 1971: A Child Has Disappeared (TV Movie, Director Only)
  • 1973: In the matter of Fischer (TV film, only director)
  • 1974: Im Sunnegrund (TV film, only director)
  • 1977: In the matter of Knuth (TV series, only director)

Working as a stage and TV writer (selection)

  • 1964: Bibi Balù (musical)
  • 1966: Golden Girl (musical)
  • 1967: Ugh Martina! (Musical)
  • 1969: Holiday in Switzerland (TV show, awarded the Golden Rose of Montreux)
  • 1972: Viva Banana (musical)
  • 1976: Z for Züri (cabaret program)
  • 1979: Ciao Ticino (cabaret program)

as well as the tabloid comedies Zürcher Balladen , Ballet für Schwindler , Bonifazius and the Magic Lamp and the detective piece silhouette .

literature

  • Hervé Dumont : The History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965. Lausanne 1987. p. 510.
  • Johann Caspar Glenzdorf: Glenzdorf's international film lexicon. Biographical manual for the entire film industry. Volume 3: Peit – Zz. Prominent-Filmverlag, Bad Münder 1961, DNB 451560752 , p. 1703.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hervé Dumont : History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965. P. 541.
personal data
SURNAME Suter, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss author, theater and film director
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1977
Place of death Küsnacht