Willy Derby

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Willy Derby (1926)

Willem Frederik Christiaan Dieben (born April 5, 1886 in The Hague ; † April 9, 1944 there ) was a Dutch singer who was one of the most popular artists in the Netherlands under the name Willy Derby in the interwar period. His most famous songs include Het plekje bij den mill (The place at the mill), Twee ogen zoo blauw , Peanut Peanut Lekka Lekka and Schnulzen, of which Hello Bandung , Het fiere schrijiershart , Droomland and Witte rozen are the best known.

Life

Derby came from a working class family in The Hague. He worked as a singing waiter in Antwerp and New York and on the ferry Hoek van Holland - Harwich , before he began a serious career in vaudeville from 1915 on, encouraged by his wife Adelaïde de Kuijper (wedding 23 April 1915) . At first he appeared together with his brother Lou Bandy under the name The Bandy Brothers (Bandy is an American inversion of the syllables thieves.) Soon, however, the characters of the brothers seemed too different to be able to work together meaningfully; unlike Lou, Willy was known as a lovable person.

Willy changed his stage name to Derby, which is more common in America, and celebrated success as a singer of slightly sentimental texts in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly written by Ferry van Delden or Jacques van Tol. In addition to being an artist, he owned a number of record stores in The Hague. As a result of the global economic crisis , he lost almost all of his fortune in the early thirties, he was later able to build it up again with his income. Derby was doing well financially, this fact helped to support both his wife and his lover Teddy Schaank, whom he had met in 1936, financially from the mid-thirties.

During the Second World War, Derby was known from the start as an anti-German artist thanks to Van Tols' disguised resistance song Op de Grebbeberg . Taking advantage of his great popularity, he explored the limits of what the occupiers considered permissible in performances. The fact that he was incarcerated in Scheveningen prison, known as the Oranjehotel , in 1941 and 1943 for anti-German provocation shows that he sometimes exceeded these limits. The medication he needed due to his heart disease was withdrawn there. Using deception and courage, Teddy Schaank managed to get her boyfriend to visit. She smuggled in the drugs and possibly saved his life.

During the war, Derby's health deteriorated. Shortly after Teddy Schaank broke off the love affair with him, Derby died of a heart attack at the age of 58 and was buried in the Oud Eik en Duinen cemetery (grave A-2426) in The Hague.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pim de Bie: Derby, Willy. Retrieved August 2, 2019 (nl-nl).
personal data
SURNAME Derby, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thieves, Willem Frederik Christiaan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch singer
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH The hague
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1944
Place of death The hague