Rudi Seeliger

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Rudi Seeliger figure skating
Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger during training in Switzerland
nation AustriaAustria Austria
birthday December 16, 1923
place of birth Vienna, Austria
date of death March 22, 1983
Place of death Vienna, Austria
Career
discipline Pair skating
society Vienna Ice Skating Association
Wiener EG
End of career 1950 as an amateur, 1960 as a revue runner
 

Rudolf ("Rudi") Seeliger (born December 16, 1923 in Vienna ; † March 22, 1983 ibid) was an Austrian figure skater . He won the Austrian championship in pair skating in 1950, was a long-time star of the Wiener Eisrevue and later managing director of an Austrian poster company.

Childhood and youth

Before the Second World War, Rudi Seeliger was one of the young hopes in Austrian ice sports. Together with Eva Pawlik , who later became European champion , he was Austrian pair skating champion in 1942 (more precisely: Ostmarkmeister, because Austria belonged to the German Empire in 1942 and therefore Ostmark championships were held instead of Austrian championships). However, due to the annexation of Austria to the German Reich and the Second World War, Seeliger was unable to prove his talent at international championships. The attempt to escape military service as an “indispensable” competitive athlete failed due to a lack of connections to influential people in the Third Reich. Rudi Seeliger, who was trained as a textile merchant, had to move in and was taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1943, from which he did not return to Austria until December 1949 as a late returnee.

Austrian pair skating champion 1950

His former pair skating partner Eva Pawlik was Olympic and World Cup runner-up in Rudi Seeliger's absence in 1948, European champion in 1949 (always in a single run) and in summer 1949 she became a revue runner, which meant she had lost her amateur status and was therefore no longer active in 1950 Championships was allowed to participate. That is why Rudi Seeliger had to find another partner for the Austrian Championships in 1950: With Susi Giebisch he managed to get gold after only 14 days of training, despite physical weakness from being a prisoner of war, and the strongly favored couple Elli Staerk / Harry Gareis and the European Championship -Third of the previous year, Herta and Emil Ratzenhofer , to refer to the places. Nevertheless, Giebisch and Seeliger did not take part in the subsequent European championships, at which Ratzenhofer / Ratzenhofer again won the bronze medal.

Career at Wiener Eisrevue and Scala Eisrevue

In the spring of 1950, Seeliger became a member of the Wiener Eisrevue ensemble . There he ran first with the EM third in the single run from 1937 and 1938, Emmy Puzinger (often incorrectly written Emmy Putzinger ). After a few months he changed his ice cream partner and returned to Eva Pawlik, the pair skating partner of his earliest youth. At the Wiener Eisrevue, Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger succeeded in becoming one of the world's best couples in the ice show business of the 1950s. The pair skating Olympic champion Ernst Baier said: “There is no trick. The two can do it. "

In 1954 Pawlik and Seeliger left the Wiener Eisrevue and, after Eva Pawlik's doctorate in philosophy, ran from 1955 to 1957 (as the successor to the Olympic champions Ilse Pausin and Erik Pausin and as the predecessor of the Olympic champions Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt ) in the German Scala Eisrevue , married in February 1957 and returned to the Wiener Eisrevue in 1958. The year-round tours with around 300 performances per year led through all of Europe and North Africa, including to Passau, Brussels, Antwerp (6-week guest performance annually), Amsterdam, Granada, Valencia, Berlin (6-week guest performance annually), Hamburg, Munich , Cologne, Lyon, Moscow (annual 6-week guest performance), Leningrad (today: St. Petersburg), Budapest, Prague, Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Bern, Geneva, Algiers and Oran.

Revue numbers with Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger (selection)

  • A little flirtation after the music "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps" (composer: Osvaldo Farrés )
  • Sin and the man (composer: Robert Stolz , commissioned for the Wiener Eisrevue, part of the ice operetta Die Ewige Eva , which Stolz dedicated to Eva Pawlik)
  • Faun and nymph (composer: Walter Heidrich , composed especially for Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger)
  • Kaiserwalzer (composer: Johann Strauss )
  • Blue Danube Waltz (composer: Johann Strauss)
  • Rhapsody in blue (Composer: George Gershwin )
  • The master couple (composer: Robert Stolz)
  • The French woman and the Martian (composer: Robert Stolz)

Wiener Eisrevue productions with Rudi Seeliger

  • 1950/51: That's love - that's woman
  • 1951/52: One has fun
  • 1952/53: The eternal Eve
  • 1953/54: Wish what your heart desires
  • 1958/59: The magic of love
  • 1959/60: In the land of dreams

From 1955 to 1957 Rudi Seeliger was the star of the Scala Eisrevue and therefore did not appear in the productions of the Wiener Eisrevue during this period.

Films with Rudi Seeliger as a figure skater

Advertising manager of the Wiener Eisrevue

In 1960 Rudi Seeliger ended his career as a figure skater, while his wife Eva Pawlik continued her show career for about a year - now only as a single skater. From 1960 to 1961, Seeliger was part of the management of the Wiener Eisrevue and was responsible for its advertising.

Managing director of a poster company

In the year of the birth of his son Roman (1962), Rudi Seeliger began a "middle-class" career as an employee of an Austrian poster company (announcer). Around 1972 he became its managing director and remained in this position until his death in 1983. In the last years of his life, Seeliger was a functionary of the Chamber of Commerce and was chairman of the Federal Professional Group for Outdoor Advertising in the Advertising Association.

literature

Books (selection)

  • Roman Seeliger: The Wiener Eisrevue. A dream faded away. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7004-0680-0 .
  • Roman Seeliger: The Wiener Eisrevue. Once Austria's ambassador - today a legend. Published by: Bezirksmuseum Meidling, Vienna 2008.
  • Ingrid Wendl: Ice cream with style. Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-7141-7105-3 .
  • Ingrid Wendl: My big bow. Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99465-5 .
  • Isabella Lechner: Viennese women who read are dangerous. Chapter "Eva Pawlik". Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-938045-72-5 .

Scientific work

  • Isabella Lechner, Die Wiener Eisrevue. Diploma thesis University of Vienna, 2008

Newspaper articles (selection)

  • Pair skating Olympic champion Ernst Baier: Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger are currently the best couple in the entire ice show business. There is no trick. Both of them can do it. In: Lübecker Nachrichten. July 20, 1956.
  • "Berliner Luft" and Wiener Eisrevue. In: The press. December 16, 1958.
  • The review of the great ice skaters - Dr. Eva Pawlik: still the best runner in the Viennese ice revue today. In: The day. (Berlin), November 10, 1959.
  • Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger (detailed article by Susan D. Russel about the life stories and careers of Pawlik and Seeliger). In: International Figure Skating Magazine. USA January / February 2009.
  • The Wiener Eisrevue and its biggest star Eva Pawlik (article by Manuela Buyny) In: Pirouette (international magazine for ice sports and roller sports) July / August 2013 issue.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eva Pawlik, autobiographical contribution In: Ernst Koref and others: When I was 19. Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-224-10415-5
  2. ↑ Roman Seeliger: The Vienna Ice Revue. A dream faded away. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7004-0680-0
  3. ^ Susan Russell, Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger: Triumph and True Love. In: International Figure Skating Magazine, February 2009, pages 20-23.
  4. ↑ Bernhard Hachleitner / Isabella Lechner (ed.): Traumfabrik on ice. From Wiener Eisrevue to Holiday on Ice. Subchapter Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger. The dream couple of the Wiener Eisrevue (pages 148 ff). Metroverlag 2014, ISBN 978-3-99300-194-0
  5. ↑ Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger are currently the best couple in the whole ice show business. In: Lübecker Nachrichten. July 20, 1956.
  6. ↑ http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2015/07/trials-and-tribulations-storied-lives.html
  7. ↑ http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2015/07/eva-and-rudi-revisted-bonus-material.html
  8. ↑ Operettas on Ice. In: Wiener Zeitung, 23./24. January 2004
  9. ↑ Isabella Lechner: The Wiener Eisrevue. Diploma thesis University of Vienna, Vienna 2008
  10. ^ Roman Seeliger, Die Wiener Eisrevue. Once Austria's ambassador - today a legend. District Museum Vienna Meidling 2008, page 45
  11. ↑ Rudi Seeliger's estate
  12. ↑ respective programs of the Wiener Eisrevue
  13. ↑ Bernhard Hachleitner / Isabella Lechner (eds.), Traumfabrik on ice. From Wiener Eisrevue to Holiday On Ice. Chapter 'Great revue scenes and shallow stories ", p. 110 ff. Metroverlag Vienna 2014. ISBN 978-3-99300-194-0
  14. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6715982/
  15. ↑ Bernhard Hachleitner / Isabella Lechner (eds.), Traumfabrik on ice. From Wiener Eisrevue to Holiday On Ice. Chapter 'Great revue scenes and shallow stories ", p. 110 ff. Metroverlag Vienna 2014. ISBN 978-3-99300-194-0
  16. ↑ Minutes of the 4th meeting of the Outdoor Advertising Committee on December 22, 1982
personal data
SURNAME Seeliger, Rudi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seeliger, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian figure skater
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1983
Place of death Vienna