- Capital: € 8.five million
- Age: 71
- Born: July 22, 1948
- Country of origin: Emden, Germany
- Source of wealth: actor
- Last updated: 2023
Short introduction
Otto Waalkes, frequently referred to as Otto for short, complete call Otto Gerhard Waalkes (July 22, 1948, Emden) is a German comic, cartoonist, actor, musician, director and grasp of simultaneous dubbing. He is the writer of a small elephant that become invented beneathneath the call “Ottifant” and has turn out to be a key determine in lots of children`s books, CDs and cartoons.
Early life
Otto grew up withinside the own circle of relatives of the artist Karl Waalkes and his spouse Adele collectively together along with his older brother Karl-Heinz, who, in contrast to Otto, did now no longer go away his domestic in Emden. The mother and father have been religious Baptists and individuals of the Evangelical Free Church, whose faculty Otto attended Sunday faculty. At the age of 12 he have become the proprietor of his first guitar, and in 1964 he first seemed with The Rustlers to carry out a Beatles song. Otto become the leader, singer and guitarist. The institution toured thru East Frisia for 5 years.
Career
Otto surpassed the faculty leaving examination (Abitur) on the Emden Gymnasium in 1968 and become admitted to the college for artwork schooling on the Hamburg University of Fine Arts years later. In Hamburg Otto done for the primary time at the level of the Danny`s Pan Folk Club, wherein he ought to earn 5 marks for a 10-minute performance. He then lived in a flat proportion with fourteen neighbors, along with Udo Lindenberg and Westernhagen. To finance better schooling, Otto endured to take the level in small clubs.
Otto`s very own level function become prompted via way of means of a few German comedians who preceded him, which includes Heinz Erhardt and Ingo Insterburg. Otto commenced to enhance his look with puns, parodies, satire, humorous gestures and grimaces. In his in advance hits, Otto translated sketches from the Woody Allen packages of the Sixties and changed and shortened them slightly. The venues to which he become invited regularly have become extra spacious, as an example the convention middle Westfalenhallen in Dortmund.
In 1972 Otto Waalkes met his destiny dealing with director Hans Otto Mertens. Since no present employer desired to submit Otto`s music, Waalkes and Mertens based their very own label “Rüssl Räckords” after a huge live performance via way of means of “The Rustlers” in Hamburg, with which the primary LP become recorded and offered withinside the identical yr with a flow of 500,000.
In 1973 Otto commenced a ten-yr collaboration with the author and artist Robert Gernhardt, first in a tv show, later Gernhardt posted Otto`s books and become concerned withinside the screenplays of his films. In the subsequent years Otto performed lots in films, dubbed the jobs of numerous characters from overseas films (usually animated) into German, directed his thematic indicates on many German TV stations, become a screenwriter, director, creator and illustrator of revealed books. On August 1, 1987, Otto opened a residence close to the city corridor of Emden in a transformed antique pharmacy, that is referred to as “Dat Otto Huus” in East Frisian dialect. There is a museum on the primary and 2d flooring of this residence, which incorporates memorabilia from the early days of Otto`s career.
In the 1989 comedy, Otto is a foreigner from Friesland. According to the plot of the movie, the pleasant and adventurous metropolis manual Otto Gross lived in a lighthouse and offered the travelers a neighborhood souvenir – a mini lighthouse glued from lavatory paper. Otto`s function-gambling characters have been: “Reporter Harry Hirsch”, “Frau Sucherbier”, “Oberförster Pudlich” and “Herbert von Karamalts”. Otto`s maximum well-known determine become a small elephant referred to as “Ottiphant”. Otto commenced to encompass the elephant, which become at first painted for the layout of data and CDs, in comedian testimonies that he posted in numerous newspapers. A collection of drawn cartoons have been regularly created primarily based totally on comics with the Ottifant and his relatives.
Career highlights
Otto is taken into consideration one of the maximum a hit representatives of German humor. In 2004, Otto`s movie “7 Dwarfs – Men Alone withinside the Forest” become visible via way of means of nearly seven million visitors in German cinemas. In 2006 the sequel “7 Dwarfs – Forests aren’t enough” acquired the Golden Screen Movie Award.
In the tv collection “Our Best Comedians.” On the ZDF in 2007 Otto took one of the pinnacle 3 of the nominated fifty actors, along with Lorio and Heinz Erhardt.
Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Stefan Weil, who supplied Otto with the “Lower Saxony Order of Merit”, quoted essential questions from the comic in certainly considered one among his tv indicates: “Where will we come from?” Where are we going? And what are we doing now? “.
The following phrases have been heard withinside the 2015 anniversary exhibition entitled “Otto – born to play the fool” (Otto-Born to fool), which become proven on ZDF at the fiftieth anniversary of Otto`s inventive activity:
“Many of Otto`s sketches, songs, and rhymes which have lengthy been a part of a collective reminiscence and cultural history are recited via way of means of coronary heart via way of means of adults and children.”
Famous quotes
Comedy is continually a recreation of expectation and surprise. …
And from the chaos a voice stated to me: “Smile and be satisfied it is able to get worse!” And I laughed and become happy – as it were given worse. …
The truth that I made my movie become basically mineralogical – I wished gravel.