Michael Günther (actor, 1935)

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Michael Günther (born July 16, 1935 in Berlin ) is a German director , actor , voice actor and translator . As a director he has worked for the stage, film and television as well as in film dubbing. He is a specialist in tabloids and vaudevilles .

Life

Career start as a child actor

Michael Günther began his acting career as a child actor . Shortly after the end of World War II , at the age of ten, he appeared on stage for the first time in his hometown of Berlin. In the stands he played, for example, in 1948 in The First Legion by Emmet Lavery in a production by Viktor de Kowa and in 1951/1952 in Aber Andre ...! by Roger Ferdinand directed by Wolfgang Spier .

At the same time, he also made a start in the film business. He had roles in Wolfgang Staudte's The Murderers Are Among Us (1946), in Morituri by Eugen York (1948) and in the same year in Der große Mandarin , Paul Wegener's last film, directed by Karl-Heinz Stroux .

In addition, the voice of foreign children's actors was in great demand in the film dubbing studios. His dubbing parts between 1949 and 1951 included Sabu in The Thief of Baghdad (1940), Bobby Henrey in Kleines Herz in Not (1948), Johnny Sheffield in two Tarzan films, and Bobby Driscoll in The Unheimliche Fenster (1949) and Die Treasure Island (1950).

After that he was only rarely active in film in the 1950s and until 1961 concentrated on the stage with engagements at various theaters in Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart .

As a stage and television director

In 1961 Michael Günther first directed: he staged Herbert Asmodi's postseason in Berlin . In the following four decades he directed more than 30 theater productions, mostly in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Günther specialized in comedies , especially tabloids and vaudevilles . In 1979 he staged the German premiere of Alan Ayckbourns Ganz unter uns at the Hanover State Theater . However, he is particularly fond of French authors, especially classics of vaudeville such as Maurice Hennequin . In 1982 he brought out his double ( Le coup de fouet ), written by Hennequin and Georges Duval , with Martin Benrath at the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich . And with Günther's production of Four Left Hands ( La voisine de dessus ) at the Komödie Berlin , the author Pierre Chesnot achieved his breakthrough in the German-speaking area in 1986. The piece was subsequently played more than 4,000 times in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Michael Günther had another great success in 1999/2000 with his staging of the classic comedy Der Raub der Sabinerinnen by Franz and Paul von Schönthan at the comedy Winterhuder Fährhaus in Hamburg, which he also prepared for a television version.

In parallel to his theatrical work, Michael Günther began to work for the German television stations in the 1960s. His first television direction in 1963 was followed by more than 80 television productions over the next four decades, in which he played a leading role. The serious television games Urlaub zur Funeral (1974) and the fixer film Heroin 4 (1978) were created in collaboration with the author Johannes Hendrich , but Günther's profession remained comedy here too. Also a comedy was his only feature film Der Pfingstausflug (1978) with Elisabeth Bergner and Martin Held in the leading roles. The feature film earned him and Bergner the 1979 Ernst Lubitsch Prize .

The 1983 television film Frau Juliane Winkler with Inge Meysel in the title role was also very prominent . Axel von Ambesser , Wolfgang Wahl and Eleonore Weisgerber also played in the leading roles .

Above all, however, Michael Günther made television versions of well-known boulevard pieces, often those of his own theater productions. Typical examples are The Next Please (1981) and The Order Ribbon (1982), two comedies by Georges Feydeau , as well as His Doppelganger (1982) by Maurice Hennequin and Georges Duval with Martin Benrath. Günther also implemented Hennequin materials several times with Heinz Schubert , such as the Schwank The President (1982) and The Commissioner's Wife (1984). Another collaboration with Schubert was the tragic comedy Der Spleen des George Riley (1983) based on Tom Stoppard about a quirky inventor.

In 1991 Günther staged a television version of Neil Simons A Strange Couple with Harald Juhnke in the role of the chaotic "Oscar Madison" and Eddi Arent as the pedantic "Felix Ungar". His fantastic comedy Der Neger Weiß (1995) about a white man who suddenly turns black as a result of an accident and then initially experiences exclusion and rejection, was the attempt to show the everyday subliminal racism not with a raised index finger, but in an ironic-sarcastic way .

Michael Günther has also directed various well-known television series over the years, including Lindenstrasse , Lukas und Sohn , Hotel Paradies and, above all, Die Drombuschs , the 5th and 6th seasons of which he directed. He made river cruises better known in 1992 with the ZDF series Danube Princess .

His last directorial work so far for a television film was Marga Engel kocht vor Wut (2003) with Marianne Sägebrecht in the title role.

Michael Guenther, who in addition to his native German and English , French , Danish and Swedish speaking, has made as a translator a name. Not only did he translate a number of theater plays into German, but from the late 1960s onwards he also made movies. Günther was responsible for the German versions of Ken Russell's Liebende Frauen (1969), Federico Fellini 's Fellini 's Satyricon (1969) and the two Robert Altman films Diebe wie wir (1973) and California Split (1974). He also occasionally returned to work as a voice actor. He spoke for Jean-Pierre Léaud in François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (1968).

Michael Günther lives in his hometown Berlin.

Awards

Michael Günther also received the “tz rose of the week” twice, awarded by the tz , to honor outstanding achievements in the cultural field.

Work (selection)

Filmography

Productions (unless otherwise mentioned, television films)

  • 1974: Funeral leave
  • 1976: City Directorate (TV series, 10 episodes)
  • 1977: Do you have nothing to declare?
  • 1977: A table for four
  • 1978: Heroin 4
  • 1978: The Whitsun excursion - movie, also screenplay
  • 1980: sour cherries
  • 1980: Hercules pills
  • 1981: At home in strange beds
  • 1981: Next please
  • 1981: The ribbon
  • 1981: string quartet
  • 1982: The President
  • 1982: Vacation by the sea
  • 1982: his doppelganger
  • 1983: Mrs. Juliane Winkler
  • 1983: The legs of the elephant - also script
  • 1983: George Riley's whimsy
  • 1984: The commissioner's wife
  • 1984: Paulchen
  • 1984: a lovely couple
  • 1984: The Broken House
  • 1986: The Murder Menu
  • 1987: Who laughs at Rosemann?
  • 1987: Lindenstraße (TV series, 8 episodes)
  • 1988: A cuckoo in the nest
  • 1988: How much love does a person need
  • 1989: Lukas and Son (TV series, 10 episodes)
  • 1990: Hotel Paradies (TV series, 14 episodes)
  • 1991: a strange couple
  • 1992: Danube Princess (TV series)
  • 1992–1994: These Drombuschs (TV series, 12 episodes)
  • 1994: The men from K3 - A peaceful village
  • 1995: The Negro White
  • 1996: Game of Life (TV series)
  • 1999: heart overboard
  • 2000: The robbery of the Sabine women
  • 2003: Marga Engel is furious

As a performer

Synchronized work

Theater productions

Translations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Short biography ( memento of the original from October 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.drombuschs.de; Retrieved October 16, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.drombuschs.de
  2. ↑ a b Michael Günther (as Michael Guenther) ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Arne Kaul's synchronous database; Retrieved October 15, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.synchrondatenbank.de
  3. ↑ Stephan Göritz: "Four left hands" on Ku'damm , article from September 15, 2009 on radio france international (rfi); Retrieved October 16, 2010
  4. ↑ -mn-: huge applause for the old theater director Striese . In: Die Welt , ( at Welt Online from November 29, 1999 ); Retrieved October 16, 2010
  5. ↑ information not complete and partly inaccurate; further data on Michael Günter in the IMDb under Michael Günther in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  6. ↑ Information not complete and partly inaccurate
personal data
SURNAME Günther, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director, actor, voice actor and translator
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin