Theater and television: Charles Brauer on his 90th birthday: “Whining is not”

What more do you want with 90? On the theater stage, in front of an audience about literature, the world bestseller like that of John Grisham on the microphone are in German – and a fulfilling family life lead in Switzerland. The actor Charles Brauer makes a completely satisfied impression. “It doesn’t work as great as it was ten years ago. But I take care of myself and keep fit. Jaming is not whining,” says the Fidele Berliner of the German Press Agency on the occasion of its 90th birthday on Thursday (July 3).

After a summer break, the long-time Hamburg “crime scene” commissioner starts again in autumn and designs several literature evenings with music. In November he can still be seen at the Ernst-German Theater in Hamburg a few times in the two-person play “Tuesdays at Morrie”. Brauer is closely connected to the theater – he celebrated his 70th anniversary there in 2024. A long career for which he was also honored in Berlin with the German Schauspiel Prize for his life’s work.

“I could imagine that” Morrie “was my last role,” says Brauer. “At my age, everything can change suddenly tomorrow. At this age you think of death every day.” Nevertheless: With such thoughts, he does not stop, but prefers to plan further literature evenings.

Brauer collected many fans as Commissioner Brockmöller in the ARD thriller in Hamburg. From 1986 to 2001 he played alongside Manfred Krug alias Commissioner Paul Stoever. The two went into the “crime scene” story as swinging cops because they repeatedly scattered musical interludes, with singing, piano or harmonica.

The common passion for music even emerged a CD that was awarded a gold record. At the end of the 1990s, Brauer also demonstrated his singing talent as highgins in the musical “My Fair Lady” in Essen.

Almost 25 years after his exit, Brauer is still asked about the “crime scene” time. That is okay. “The” crime scene “is one of the most prominent number of German television. If you do this 16 years, it is clear that this has a sustainable effect, “says Brauer.” It also had many advantages: Organizers of a theater tour will rather get you when you are a well -known nose through television. “

In fact, the crime scene prominence also brought him the job to set the works by John Grisham as audio books. “At the time I hadn’t read a line from Grisham,” says Brauer. “They were thrillers, I didn’t care that so terrible.” In the meantime, Brauer very much appreciates the US authors. “Grisham is always about the judiciary in the United States that you don’t want to fall into your hands,” he says. This year the latest Grisham band came out as a German audio book: “The Legend”. After thorough reading, he needed around five or six days in the studio for production, he says.

Brewer has not yet hit the 70 -year -old Grisham, but the writer very much appreciates the audio books: “I keep writing, you keep reading” – I keep reading, they read on, wrote Grisham a few years ago to Brewer. In fact, the actor knows how to bring the characters to life with his striking voice with his striking voice. This is how it works on the literature evenings, which brewers designed according to their own ideas in front of an audience.

However, he does not carry his own novel: “No, I am too demanding about literature,” he says with a laugh. In 2023 he published a band with stories about experiences and people who shaped him “the blue hat”. With such a hat, the director Gerhard Lamprecht discovered the eleven -year -old brewer in Berlin in 1946. He promptly hired the boy, who was still called Charles Knetschke at the time, for the film “somewhere in Berlin”.

From 1954, Brauer also stood in front of the camera in the first German family television series, “Family Schölermann”. The series became a street sweeper and brewer as the eldest son Heinz a dream of post -warad and a swarm of mother -in -law. Whether theater, film, television or as a reader: every task is different and exciting for itself, says Brauer. “But the theater is basically number one. Without theater: that doesn’t work at all.”

When chatting, the Berlin -based company at Brauer comes through again and again: “Keene lust”, or “I don’t know at all,” he says. He has been living at Basel in Switzerland for around 40 years, now with a Swiss passport. He is married to the stage designer Lilot Hegi, with whom he has a son. He also has twins from an earlier marriage to actress Witta Pohl (1937-2011). There is therefore a lot of family visit to his birthday, then a big party for friends. “I’m looking forward to it,” says Brauer.