Wilhelm Pilgram (actor)

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Friedrich Wilhelm Pilgram (born January 1, 1889 in Barmen , today Wuppertal , † November 1, 1971 in Cologne ) was a German actor and radio play speaker .

Life

Wilhelm Pilgram was the son of a factory owner and attended a humanistic grammar school before completing an apprenticeship in banking from 1905 to 1907 and, the following year, an internship at Crédit Lyonnais in Paris for several months . As a student of Siegwart Friedmann , from 1909 he trained as an actor at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. There he began his artistic career as an extra. In 1910, Pilgram was briefly engaged at the New Theater in Hamburg, after which he played at the Bremen Schauspielhaus until 1912 . After brief guest appearances at the Stadttheater Kiel and in Dresden, Pilgram went to what was then the Royal Prussian Court Theater in 1915 , where he worked until 1920. Between 1915 and 1918 he was also acting director of the theaters in Bielefeld and Göttingen . On another guest appearance at the Berlin Lessing Theater followed with the beginning of season 1920/21 a commitment to the German Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, where he for the first time on 1 Christmas Day 1920 in the role of Andreas Graf Mach in the play Bettina engagement of Leo Lenz on stood on the stage. On November 17, 1921 he premiered there in the title role of Ibsen's Peer Gynt , which he played over 110 times over the years.

In Hamburg, Pilgram, who appeared here under the pseudonym Willy Favart for unknown reasons that could not be ascertained, was put on record in 1935 at the latest because of repeated accusations of same-sex sexual acts with an underage student. Legal proceedings against him were initially suspended in 1936, but in February 1938 there was a trial in which Pilgram was acquitted of all allegations. All artistic activities of Pilgram were suspended from 1936 to 1940. It was not until 1940 that he accepted an engagement at the Schauspiel Köln under his real name "at the instigation of the Reichstheaterkammer" , as he later wrote to the Hamburg author and cultural historian Paul Möhring . There Pilgram made his debut on September 25, 1940 as King Lear in the tragedy of the same name by William Shakespeare . Due to its operation, the Cologne theater was the first theater in the British zone of occupation to resume its theater operations after the end of the war. On August 17, 1945, Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream premiered in the university auditorium.

Well-known roles in Wilhelm Pilgram's more than 60-year career, alongside King Lear and Peer Gynt , included Jago in Othello , Duke Alba and Domingo in Schiller's Don Karlos , the note in Midsummer Night's Dream , Pastor Manders in Ghosts and Torvald Helmer in Nora or A doll's house , both by Henrik Ibsen , or the Stauffacher in Wilhelm Tell , but also the musician Dickback in Paul Schurek's comedy Street Music . In the role of grandfather in Paul Osborn's The Death in the Apple Tree , Pilgram celebrated 25 years at the Schauspiel Köln in 1965, and on the occasion of his 80th birthday he was made an honorary member of the stages of the city of Cologne .

Wilhelm Pilgram, who was seen in 199 roles in Cologne between 1940 and 1969, was also able to demonstrate an equally extensive activity as a radio play speaker. As early as 1926 he was involved in a production by the Nordic Broadcasting Corporation (NORAG), and by 1970 almost 300 other productions followed with Pilgram's participation.

On the other hand, Pilgram rarely worked for television. Only at the beginning of the 1920s and between 1954 and 1966 did he appear in front of the camera a few times. His voice has also been preserved in a complete recording of the Singspiel Im Weiße Rößl from 1970, in which he speaks to Professor Hinzelmann .

Pilgram died at the age of 82 in a Cologne hospital. He wasn't married.

Filmography

  • 1921: An unsolved case
  • 1922: Don Juan - Vera-Filmwerke (under the pseudonym Willy Favart )
  • 1954: Schneider Wibbel
  • 1954: An angel named Schmitt
  • 1959: The Lord Ornifle
  • 1961: Bernadette Soubirous
  • 1962: Daphne Laureola
  • 1963: Have a nice weekend, Mr. Bennett
  • 1965: South Seas Affair
  • 1966: The cherry orchard

Radio plays (selection)

Awards

  • 1959: Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit
  • 1969: Appointment as honorary member of the theaters of the city of Cologne

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Death certificate No. 3197 from November 3, 1971, registry office Cologne West. LAV NRW R civil status register, accessed on June 6, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Festschrift for the 80th birthday, published by the Cologne Local Association of the Cooperative of German Stage Members and the stages of the City of Cologne
  3. ↑ Three Hamburg actors in trouble from Dr. Gottfried Lorenz: Töv, di schiet ik an , contributions to Hamburg's gay history, pp. 474–476, LIT VERLAG Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin, 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-12173-8 ( online , accessed March 27, 2016)
  4. ↑ Rudolf Schock sings Ralph Benatzky at tenorschock.blogspot.de , accessed on March 27, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Pilgram, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pilgram, Friedrich Wilhelm (full name); Favart, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor and radio play speaker
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen , today Wuppertal
DATE OF DEATH 1st November 1971
Place of death Cologne