Comedian and bestselling author: Hape Kerkeling turns 60 – and looks back on his life

What is Hape Kerkeling doing on his 60th birthday today? He will probably sit in front of the television with his husband Dirk Henning. “We’ll definitely watch this crazy theme day, you probably only get something like that once in your life,” the comedian and entertainer tells the German Press Agency in Cologne. ARD is celebrating his milestone birthday with several programs in the evening, including the new documentary “Hape Kerkeling – Totally normal” at 8:15 p.m.

He began his career “quite unprepared”

Kerkeling has been prominent for longer than Germany has been reunified. In 1983, when he was just 19 years old, he received the first edition of a newly founded cabaret award from Bavaria, the Passau Executioner’s Hatchet. From then on, everything happened very quickly: “I fell into this pretty big career quite unprepared,” he reflects in the dpa interview.

At the age of 20, he was already hosting his own show on ARD (“Känguru”), with almost no stage experience. “I had previously performed in connection with school performances or had once made smaller appearances at talent competitions with 50 spectators. And then suddenly the ARD show stage. Looking back, I have to say: the fact that it went well is amazing.”

When things weren’t going so well, he retrained as a naturopath

Things didn’t go so smoothly at first, because two years later he was kicked out of WDR again. After that, shooting festivals were the order of the day. “Actually, it was only then that I learned the craft from scratch.” His final breakthrough came in 1989 with the award-winning comedy series “Total Normal”, which he appeared in together with his school friend Achim Hagemann.

Success has remained with him ever since, perhaps apart from a brief dry spell at the end of the 1990s when he reoriented himself professionally and began training as a naturopath. “I felt very comfortable at this school,” he says. “It’s annoying in retrospect that I didn’t graduate.” He has forgotten a lot of things since then – but, he says with a look at his husband, he knows everything better about health issues at home since then.

His biggest iconic moment was the thing with Beatrix. In a spectacular move in 1991, he managed to drive up to Bellevue Palace in a costume with a bright blue hat shortly before a state visit by the Queen of the Netherlands. In fact, the fake Beatrix was allowed onto the premises to “have a delicious lunch”.

Günther Jauch mentions in the documentary that the prank could easily have had serious consequences if the security forces had reacted in a less relaxed manner. Kerkeling says in the dpa interview: “It also shows the size of the Federal Republic at that time, that people didn’t see it so narrowly. Today it would probably be different.”

While watching television, he was advised to have a fake relationship

By the way, he didn’t realize immediately afterwards that he had made TV history with this scene: “No, I didn’t find it particularly funny,” he remembers. “I experienced it in the first person and thought: ‘Delicious lunch’ – yes, and now? It was only when the audience looked at the piece that I realized what we had actually achieved.”

Although Kerkeling wanted to go into television as a small boy – triggered by a Christmas speech from Federal President Gustav Heinemann – he soon became aware of the dark side of the medium.

In his new book “Give me some time” he describes widespread bullying behind the scenes. He himself received a recommendation from WDR to enter into a pseudo-heterosexual relationship in order to cover up his homosexuality. His forced outing took place in 1991 by the gay filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim – he justifies his actions in the documentary, and sharp criticism comes from Günther Jauch, among others.

Horst Schlämmer is like Santa Claus

His classic TV scenes include Horst Schlämmer’s guest appearance on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”. Here the man with the beige trench coat managed to displace Jauch from the moderator’s chair and take over the direction himself.

Kerkeling is currently preparing a new film with his best-known character in the lead role – Schlämmer in the Woke Age. Why is the smear reporter so loved despite his all too obvious shortcomings?

“I think it’s the voice,” Kerkeling tells dpa. “This sonorous, Santa Claus-like quality. He has in common with Santa Claus the self-confident demeanor, but also the slightly drunkenness, the red cheeks and the nose.”

It was clear to Kerkeling early on that he wanted to largely retire from the screen by the age of 50 at the latest. He hasn’t done his own show since then. “My main concern is to be able to express myself artistically as freely as possible, and of course the best option is to write.”

In 2006, he published the most successful non-fiction book of the post-war period, “I’ll be gone” about his hike to Santiago de Compostela. This wasn’t originally planned – the pilgrimage was rather his response to a personal crisis following an operation and sudden hearing loss.

His best friend, the singer Isabel Varell, says in the documentary: “It’s typical for Hape not to sit still and sink into the sofa, knowing that he had a mother who suffered from severe depression and couldn’t stand life anymore “That won’t happen to him because he’ll go on the journey again and again in his life.”

“With all our might” against the anti-democrats from the right

Since “I’ll be gone” all of his books have immediately reached the top of the bestseller lists, most recently the deal with his family and his ancestors, “Give me some time”.

The books are likely to appeal to so many people because Kerkeling was never just a comedian. He has always looked into the abyss and has mastered the quiet tones as well as the slapstick. He doesn’t seem to have any problems with getting older – unlike some other celebrities – but he also has political awareness and a willingness to show moral courage.

Last year, he gave a laudatory speech in the Düsseldorf synagogue for the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who was honored with a prize for her commitment to combating anti-Semitism – which resulted in numerous hostility towards him.

“I am not a historian, not a political scientist, not a sociologist, not an economist,” he says in the dpa interview. “But when I just look at the matter as a citizen, I have to realize that there are forces in this country that want to eliminate democracy, and these forces are supported by some very powerful countries that are also doing everything they can to do so “If we recognize this, then the consequence must be that we have to do everything we can to fight against it.”