Who was/is Gerry Wolff ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
Gerry Wolff
Gerry Wolff (1920-2005) was a Jewish-German actor and singer who lived in exile in England during the Nazi era and returned to East Berlin in 1947 to help build a new Germany. From 1949 he played in the Berliner Volksbühne and from 1951 in numerous movies. His most important was 1963 'Naked among wolves' (director: Frank Beyer).
Gerry Wolff was active as a speaker in radio, radio plays and dubbing and belonged "to the rare actors ... who can also sing chansons and jazz" ('Eulenspiegel'). At the end of the 50's he produced many Agitpropsongs in the radio, at the beginning of the 60's he moderated an entertainment program on television and appeared with Perry Friedman in Hootenannys. The DEFA film 'Revue um Mitternacht' was the beginning of a collaboration with the composer Gerd Natschinski, who asked him in 1963 whether he would like to play the leading role in a revue programme of Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast, the Palastical 'Die Frau des Jahres' (The Woman of the Year). Wolff asked for a day to reflect and rejected the offer the next day on the grounds: "I am a sausage and want to remain a sausage."
In the following years Natschinski produced a series of songs and Schlagerchansons with Wolff. The most famous title was The Rose Was Red. Gerry Wolff performed it at the Schlagerfestival in Sopot, Poland and received a prize from the journalists. In the GDR one hoped at that time to overcome with such Schlagerchansons the "countable garden gnome level" (Jens Gerlach) of the Schlager.
Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.2, For whom we sing (3-CD)
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