Cornelia Froboess
Encyclopedia
Cornelia Froboess is a German
actress and a teen idol
of the 1950s and early 1960s. During that time, Froboess appeared in many musical film
s, especially after the rock and roll
wave had hit Germany. In those comedy film
s, she would often portray the typical 'Berliner Göre' (brat from Berlin
) who craves for independence from her strict parents.
in 1951, aged eight, with a song written by her father. "Pack die Badehose ein" ("Pack Your Swimsuit
") is a cheery tune about a group of children going swimming on a hot summer's day at the Wannsee
. The title of the song has become a set phrase
and synonym
for going swimming easily recognized even by speakers of German
who have never heard of the song.
In 1962 Froboess finished in sixth place at the Eurovision Song Contest
, where she sang "Zwei kleine Italiener
" ("Two Little Italians") for Germany. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
. The same year
she appeared as herself in Jean Renoir
's comedy film
The Elusive Corporal
.
Later Froboess became a theatre and movie actress. In 1982 she appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder
's film Veronika Voss. In 1988 she played Marthe Schwerdtlein in Goethe
's Faust I, a performance that was also released as film: Faust – Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hölle. In 1997 Froboess played the mother of the protagonist Martin Brest (Til Schweiger
) in the film Knockin' on Heaven's Door
. On stage, she appeared in Lessing
's Minna von Barnhelm in 1976, staged by Dieter Dorn
. and played Ellida in Ibsen
's The Lady from the Sea
in 1990. At the Salzburg Festival
2004 she played Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill
's Long Day's Journey into Night
. The same year she played the title role in Bertolt Brecht
's play Mother Courage and Her Children
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
actress and a teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
of the 1950s and early 1960s. During that time, Froboess appeared in many musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
s, especially after the rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
wave had hit Germany. In those comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
s, she would often portray the typical 'Berliner Göre' (brat from Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
) who craves for independence from her strict parents.
Biography
As Conny Froboess she had her first hit recordHit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
in 1951, aged eight, with a song written by her father. "Pack die Badehose ein" ("Pack Your Swimsuit
Swimsuit
A swimsuit, bathing suit, or swimming costume is an item of clothing designed to be worn by men, women or children while they are engaging in a water-based activity or water sports, such as swimming, water polo, diving, surfing, water skiing, or during activities in the sun, such as sun bathing.A...
") is a cheery tune about a group of children going swimming on a hot summer's day at the Wannsee
Wannsee
Wannsee is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger Großer Wannsee and the Kleiner Wannsee , are located on the river Havel and are separated only by the Wannsee bridge...
. The title of the song has become a set phrase
Set phrase
A set phrase or fixed phrase is a phrase whose parts are fixed, even if the phrase could be changed without harming the literal meaning. This is because a set phrase is a culturally accepted phrase. A set phrase does not necessarily have any literal meaning in and of itself. Set phrases may...
and synonym
Synonym
Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
for going swimming easily recognized even by speakers of German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
who have never heard of the song.
In 1962 Froboess finished in sixth place at the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1962
The Eurovision Song Contest 1962 was the seventh in the series. France's win was their third and marked the first time a country had won three contests. Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, and Spain all scored "null points" for the first time....
, where she sang "Zwei kleine Italiener
Zwei Kleine Italiener
"Zwei kleine Italiener" was the German entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, performed in German by Conny Froboess....
" ("Two Little Italians") for Germany. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
. The same year
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
she appeared as herself in Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
's comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
The Elusive Corporal
The Elusive Corporal
The Elusive Corporal is a 1962 French film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean-Pierre Cassel. It was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival.Renoir shot his film in Austria in 1961 from Jacques Perret's book based on his own prisoner of war experiences...
.
Later Froboess became a theatre and movie actress. In 1982 she appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
's film Veronika Voss. In 1988 she played Marthe Schwerdtlein in Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's Faust I, a performance that was also released as film: Faust – Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hölle. In 1997 Froboess played the mother of the protagonist Martin Brest (Til Schweiger
Til Schweiger
Tilman Valentin "Til" Schweiger is a German actor, director, and producer.He is one of Germany’s most successful filmmakers. Since 1968, when the FFA started counting, no other German actor has drawn more people to the cinemas. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin.-Early...
) in the film Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (film)
Knockin' on Heaven's Door is a 1997 German criminal comedy, by Thomas Jahn, starring Til Schweiger, Moritz Bleibtreu and Rutger Hauer. Its name derives from the Bob Dylan song which is also on the film's soundtrack.- Story :...
. On stage, she appeared in Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...
's Minna von Barnhelm in 1976, staged by Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel.- Biography :...
. and played Ellida in Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...
in 1990. At the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
2004 she played Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
. The same year she played the title role in Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's play Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin...
.
Selected filmography
- DerrickDerrick (TV series)Derrick is a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein , who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings Derrick is a...
- Season 4, Episode 8: "Via Bangkok" (1977) - DerrickDerrick (TV series)Derrick is a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein , who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings Derrick is a...
- Season 5, Episode 12: "Ute und Manuela" (1978) - DerrickDerrick (TV series)Derrick is a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein , who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings Derrick is a...
- Season 9, Episode 2: "Eine Falle für Derrick" (1982)
Awards
- 1962 Goldene Schallplatte
- 1968 Ernst-Lubitsch-Preis
- 1985 Member of the Akademie der KünsteAkademie der KünsteThe Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
- 1990 Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring
- 1994 Bayerischer FilmpreisBayerischer FilmpreisThe Bavarian Film Awards have been awarded annually since 1979 by the State Government of Bavaria in Germany for “exceptional achievement in German filmmaking.” Along with the German Film Awards, these are the most highly regarded awards for filmmaking achievement in Germany.The Bavarian Film...
(Bavarian Film Award)