Jacob Truedson Demitz
Encyclopedia
Jacob Truedson Demitz is a Swedish-American writer
and entertainment director known for his 1996 book about Scandinavian kings and, as Lars Jacob, for hundreds of cabaret
shows in the United States and Europe from 1972 to 2004. He grew up in Illinois, returned to Sweden and later lived for extended periods in Florida and California.
, Sweden
, the son of singer Birgit Ridderstedt
and C. Erik Ridderstedt, and first arrived in the United States as an infant, then living in and near Chicago
until the age of 13. Through his father's crafts-and-gifts import business and his mother’s entertainment ventures he was inspired early in an inter-cultural environment.
Not wanting to be mistaken for a cleric uncle also called Lars Ridderstedt, who had gained notoriety in Sweden, he decided in 1969 to use Jacob as his first name of address. After noticing for many years the problems Americans had in using his parents' last name, he adopted the surname of Demitz in 1980, the original name from 1693 of the extinct House of Ridderstedt before nobility, and he was the first in 300 years to change his name back.
His patronymic
Truedson added in 1990, stems from a Scania
n great-great-grandfather Trued Abrehamsson, whose lineage has been traced back to the 1640s when the area and the family were Danish
, and whose descendants outside of Europe inhabit many of the United States today.
(ISBN 91-630-5030-7) had more than 30 years of research by Demitz before it was published in 1996, appreciated particularly for its English-language name forms for Swedish royalty and a lack of nationalism. The book fulfilled collection requirements as a reference work and was included as such at more than 180 libraries, including the national libraries of 73 countries. It has been out of print since 2001.
Demitz's 500-volume historical library was accepted in advance for posthumous donation to the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library at Gustavus Adolphus College
, making him a member, as of 2005, of the college's Gustavus Heritage Partnership, named for Gustav II Adolph of Sweden.
An STIM
member since 1970, Demitz has scripted and directed Max von Sydow
for television in English and written special lyrics for major corporations. He has also done a regular half-page editorial column in 1996-1997 for Nya Ludvika Tidning
plus numerous other articles for selected press and information websites like Find A Grave
, where 72 of his biographies (2008) have been approved by administrators for "Famous" status.
Demitz's published song lyrics started with a record album for EMI
in 1970 which had good reviews, and a single for Odeon
the following year, that both included his Swedish version of Burt Bacharach
's "Close to You". Other adaptations include "Santa Baby
", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
" (both in Swedish), and an original company song in English for SAS Group
called "Flying Time".
He also writes as a human rights activist, and his complaints led to the censure of one of the Sweden’s top judges in 1993, over erased trial tapes of testimony, and in 1995 to a nationally publicized debate over the use of young children to sell lottery tickets, commented on by a Cultural Minister
in agreement.
In recent years, Demitz has reviewed and rewritten English text for Swedish individuals and organizations, including Karolinska Institutet
in 2005.
Demitz debuted as a solo singer at the age of nine in one of his mother's programs on WTTW
, was active in music and drama in school and began mainstream stage performances in a short-lived Swedish musical in 1968.
Having graduated Studentexamen
that year at Mörby Läroverk (a junior college) in Danderyd, Sweden, specializing in languages and the musical arts, he desired within two years to cross the Atlantic again and moved to Florida. Attracting interest as a model of free-spirited European youth, he appeared in Tampa Bay
area press and in 1972 as a featured guest on the talk shows of Herb Hunt and George Michelle.
A Stockholm disc jockey and dance leader in the early 1970s, Demitz choreographed disco scenes in an avant-garde motion picture More from the Language of Love.
Returning there from Florida, he soon was Director of Entertainment for Sweden’s nightclub queen Alexandra Charles
and in 1975-1976 put on celebrated shows for her and in Gothenburg that he had created earlier in Miami Beach. Fans of his decadent cabarets included the members of ABBA
and tennis champion Björn Borg
, who saw rambunctious new ground broken in domestic Swedish entertainment.
Lars Jacob’s mimical spoof Wild Side Story
ran more than 500 times (1973–2004) in Florida, Sweden, California and Spain.
Demitz hosted a formal celebrity dinner at Berns on the Mae West
Centennial in 1993. A month later his intended show extravaganza was cancelled there because of new demands from the restaurant due to insufficient sales of the SEK
1,000 tickets.
That same year and in 1995 he did some of his most appreciated performances as the "Preacher" in an outdoor musical event called Farmer's Wedding performed in his mother's native town of Ludvika
and at the Stockholm Water Festival
in the royal Kungsträdgården
park.
For a youth project called Läckerhetsvakten (a pun on 'security guard' for youthful health and attraction), the F.U.S.I.A. cabaret school (1998–2005) where Demitz was the creative director, got one of Skandia
's "Ideas for Life" grants in 2001.
He has also lived in Salzburg
, Austria where his voice was schooled in 1968-1969 by Grete Menzel, has English and Swedish as primary languages and speaks fluent German, French and Spanish plus dialects and phrases of a number of other tongues. Being multilingual, and his entertainment background, worked for Demitz in 1999-2000 at the 5-star Palm Oasis resort (belonging to Interval International
) on Grand Canary, where he became a successful timeshare agent and defended ethical practices only in that field. The work drew severe criticism anyway from press in Sweden, where all forms of timeshare have had bad publicity and have been frowned upon.
Since 2005 he is Chairman of nonprofit foundation Southerly Clubs and since 2006 Deputy Chairman of FamSAC, an international society of some 5,000 relatives, among them Stanley M. Truhlsen
, Mattias Klum
and Siri von Reis
. Demitz has arranged and hosted international family reunions and commemorations, some of them large, in the Swedish capital and provinces of Sudermania, Scania and Dalecarlia as well as in New York City, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming.
For the CabarEng ensemble, Lars Jacob directed Tuesday night cabarets such as CaCa Bleu in Stockholm from 2009 until recently and went on tour in 2011 with the group doing A Tribute Westward and Cabaret Large A-Cup at venues in Manhattan
, Washington DC, Annapolis and Boston
. Otherwise he has practically retired from entertainment, accepting an occasional assignment to direct, write or perform something of a less extensive nature. He works as a freelance
inter-cultural communicator, usually based in Stockholm, and is represented as an orator and M.C.
by a Scandinavian agency.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and entertainment director known for his 1996 book about Scandinavian kings and, as Lars Jacob, for hundreds of cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
shows in the United States and Europe from 1972 to 2004. He grew up in Illinois, returned to Sweden and later lived for extended periods in Florida and California.
Origin and names
Demitz was born in ÖrebroÖrebro
-Sites of interest:Örebro's old town Wadköping is located on the banks of Svartån . It contains many 18th and 19th century wooden houses, along with museums and exhibitions....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, the son of singer Birgit Ridderstedt
Birgit Ridderstedt
Birgit Ridderstedt was a Swedish-American folk singer and cultural ambassador who appeared at festivals and on television in the 1950s and early 1960s with material she produced herself.-Background:...
and C. Erik Ridderstedt, and first arrived in the United States as an infant, then living in and near Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
until the age of 13. Through his father's crafts-and-gifts import business and his mother’s entertainment ventures he was inspired early in an inter-cultural environment.
Not wanting to be mistaken for a cleric uncle also called Lars Ridderstedt, who had gained notoriety in Sweden, he decided in 1969 to use Jacob as his first name of address. After noticing for many years the problems Americans had in using his parents' last name, he adopted the surname of Demitz in 1980, the original name from 1693 of the extinct House of Ridderstedt before nobility, and he was the first in 300 years to change his name back.
His patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
Truedson added in 1990, stems from a Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
n great-great-grandfather Trued Abrehamsson, whose lineage has been traced back to the 1640s when the area and the family were Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and whose descendants outside of Europe inhabit many of the United States today.
Writer's career
Throne of a Thousand YearsThrone of a Thousand Years
Throne of a Thousand Years is a non-fiction book, written by Jacob Truedson Demitz and published in 1996, and is the first English-language historical account of the kings and queens of Sweden....
(ISBN 91-630-5030-7) had more than 30 years of research by Demitz before it was published in 1996, appreciated particularly for its English-language name forms for Swedish royalty and a lack of nationalism. The book fulfilled collection requirements as a reference work and was included as such at more than 180 libraries, including the national libraries of 73 countries. It has been out of print since 2001.
Demitz's 500-volume historical library was accepted in advance for posthumous donation to the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library at Gustavus Adolphus College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in St. Peter, Minnesota, United States. A coeducational, four-year, residential institution, it was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. To this day the school is firmly...
, making him a member, as of 2005, of the college's Gustavus Heritage Partnership, named for Gustav II Adolph of Sweden.
An STIM
STIM
STIM, Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå, is the collecting society for songwriters, composers and music publishers of Sweden. Its role is to act as an agent for its members in order to collect license fees whenever their musical works are performed in public, broadcast or transmitted,...
member since 1970, Demitz has scripted and directed Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
for television in English and written special lyrics for major corporations. He has also done a regular half-page editorial column in 1996-1997 for Nya Ludvika Tidning
Nya Ludvika Tidning
Nya Ludvika Tidning is a local Swedish daily newspaper with distribution in Ludvika and Smedjebacken municipalities. It has a circulation of 9,100 copies , according to Tidningsstatistik AB.In February 2002 it was purchased by Dalarnas Tidningar....
plus numerous other articles for selected press and information websites like Find A Grave
Find A Grave
Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
, where 72 of his biographies (2008) have been approved by administrators for "Famous" status.
Demitz's published song lyrics started with a record album for EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
in 1970 which had good reviews, and a single for Odeon
Odeon Records
Odeon Records was a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. It was named after a famous theatre in Paris, whose classical dome appears on the Odeon record label....
the following year, that both included his Swedish version of Burt Bacharach
Burt Bacharach
Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
's "Close to You". Other adaptations include "Santa Baby
Santa Baby
"Santa Baby" is a 1953 Christmas song written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer. Although Tony Springer is listed as co-writer, he was a legal fiction created for purposes of membership in the performing rights organization BMI.The song is a tongue-in-cheek look at a Christmas list sung by a...
", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a historic African-American spiritual. The first recording was in 1909, by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University....
" (both in Swedish), and an original company song in English for SAS Group
SAS Group
Scandinavian Airlines System Aktiebolag , trading as SAS Group and SAS AB, is a holding company based in Solna, Sweden. It is the parent company of the airlines Scandinavian Airlines, Blue1 and Widerøe, and the aviation services companies SAS Business Opportunities, SAS Cargo Group, SAS Ground...
called "Flying Time".
He also writes as a human rights activist, and his complaints led to the censure of one of the Sweden’s top judges in 1993, over erased trial tapes of testimony, and in 1995 to a nationally publicized debate over the use of young children to sell lottery tickets, commented on by a Cultural Minister
Ministry of Culture (Sweden)
The Ministry of Culture is a ministry within the government of Sweden responsible for culture policy. The ministry is headed by the Minister for Culture, currently Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth ....
in agreement.
In recent years, Demitz has reviewed and rewritten English text for Swedish individuals and organizations, including Karolinska Institutet
Karolinska Institutet
Karolinska institutet is a medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area, Sweden, and one of Europe's largest medical universities...
in 2005.
Entertainment
WTTW
WTTW channel 11 is one of three Public Broadcasting Service member public television stations serving the Chicago, Illinois market; the others are WYCC and WYIN. WTTW began broadcasting on September 6, 1955 and it is owned and operated by Window to the World Communications, Inc., a not-for-profit...
, was active in music and drama in school and began mainstream stage performances in a short-lived Swedish musical in 1968.
Having graduated Studentexamen
Studentexamen
Studentexamen is the name of the university entrance examination in Sweden from the 17th century until 1968, during the period 1862–1968 taken as a final written and oral exam on graduation from gymnasium...
that year at Mörby Läroverk (a junior college) in Danderyd, Sweden, specializing in languages and the musical arts, he desired within two years to cross the Atlantic again and moved to Florida. Attracting interest as a model of free-spirited European youth, he appeared in Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and estuary along the Gulf of Mexico on the west central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay."Tampa Bay" is not the name of any municipality...
area press and in 1972 as a featured guest on the talk shows of Herb Hunt and George Michelle.
A Stockholm disc jockey and dance leader in the early 1970s, Demitz choreographed disco scenes in an avant-garde motion picture More from the Language of Love.
Returning there from Florida, he soon was Director of Entertainment for Sweden’s nightclub queen Alexandra Charles
Alexandra Charles
Alexandra Charles is the nightclub queen of Sweden. She ran a membership restaurant-discothèque called Alexandra's in central Stockholm from 1968 to 1988....
and in 1975-1976 put on celebrated shows for her and in Gothenburg that he had created earlier in Miami Beach. Fans of his decadent cabarets included the members of ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
and tennis champion Björn Borg
Björn Borg
Björn Rune Borg is a former world no. 1 tennis player from Sweden. Between 1974 and 1981 he won 11 Grand Slam singles titles. He won five consecutive Wimbledon singles titles and six French Open singles titles...
, who saw rambunctious new ground broken in domestic Swedish entertainment.
Lars Jacob’s mimical spoof Wild Side Story
Wild Side Story
Wild Side Story is a stage show that originated as an underground happening in Miami Beach, Florida in 1973. From that year until the end of production in 2004, it was performed hundreds of times in Florida, Sweden, California and Spain....
ran more than 500 times (1973–2004) in Florida, Sweden, California and Spain.
Demitz hosted a formal celebrity dinner at Berns on the Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
Centennial in 1993. A month later his intended show extravaganza was cancelled there because of new demands from the restaurant due to insufficient sales of the SEK
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
1,000 tickets.
That same year and in 1995 he did some of his most appreciated performances as the "Preacher" in an outdoor musical event called Farmer's Wedding performed in his mother's native town of Ludvika
Ludvika
Ludvika is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Ludvika Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden, with 14,018 inhabitants in 2005.-Overview:The conurbation of Ludvika extends over the border of Smedjebacken Municipality, where about 400 inhabitants live....
and at the Stockholm Water Festival
Stockholm Water Festival
The Stockholm Water Festival was an annual street festival held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August from 1991 to 1999. The festival featured many activities in central Stockholm, but was eventually cancelled after the 1999 festival due to lack of funds....
in the royal Kungsträdgården
Kungsträdgården
Kungsträdgården is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as Kungsan.The park's central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts and meeting places in Stockholm. It also hosts open-air concerts and events in summer, while offering an ice...
park.
Skandia
Skandia is a Swedish insurance company that was started in 1855. It has operations in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Skandia also operates an internet bank called Skandiabanken....
's "Ideas for Life" grants in 2001.
He has also lived in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, Austria where his voice was schooled in 1968-1969 by Grete Menzel, has English and Swedish as primary languages and speaks fluent German, French and Spanish plus dialects and phrases of a number of other tongues. Being multilingual, and his entertainment background, worked for Demitz in 1999-2000 at the 5-star Palm Oasis resort (belonging to Interval International
Interval International
Interval International is a publicly traded company and former subsidiary of the corporation IAC/InterActiveCorp and is headquartered in Miami, Florida, USA. The CEO is Craig Nash.-Background:...
) on Grand Canary, where he became a successful timeshare agent and defended ethical practices only in that field. The work drew severe criticism anyway from press in Sweden, where all forms of timeshare have had bad publicity and have been frowned upon.
Since 2005 he is Chairman of nonprofit foundation Southerly Clubs and since 2006 Deputy Chairman of FamSAC, an international society of some 5,000 relatives, among them Stanley M. Truhlsen
Stanley M. Truhlsen
Stanley M. Truhlsen is an American ophthalmologist, university professor and philanthropist in Omaha who has served as president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, as a governor of the American College of Surgeons and led a number of distinguished Nebraska organizations.- Biography :He is...
, Mattias Klum
Mattias Klum
Mattias Klum is a Swedish freelance photographer and film producer in natural history and cultural subjects. He is the son of Swedish academic educator Arne Klum and Ingegärd Klum, née Stefanson. Klum has worked full-time as a freelance photographer since 1986, and as a cinematographer and...
and Siri von Reis
Siri von Reis
Siri Sylvia Patricia von Reis is an American botanist, author and poet. She has worked as an investigator at the New York Botanical Garden and is the mother of reporter/correspondent Serena Altschul.-Bibliography:...
. Demitz has arranged and hosted international family reunions and commemorations, some of them large, in the Swedish capital and provinces of Sudermania, Scania and Dalecarlia as well as in New York City, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming.
For the CabarEng ensemble, Lars Jacob directed Tuesday night cabarets such as CaCa Bleu in Stockholm from 2009 until recently and went on tour in 2011 with the group doing A Tribute Westward and Cabaret Large A-Cup at venues in Manhattan
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Washington DC, Annapolis and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. Otherwise he has practically retired from entertainment, accepting an occasional assignment to direct, write or perform something of a less extensive nature. He works as a freelance
Freelancer
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
inter-cultural communicator, usually based in Stockholm, and is represented as an orator and M.C.
Master of Ceremonies
A Master of Ceremonies , or compere, is the host of a staged event or similar performance.An MC usually presents performers, speaks to the audience, and generally keeps the event moving....
by a Scandinavian agency.