Jürgen von Manger

Who Jürgen von Manger is

Jürgen von Manger was a German comedian and actor, born in Koblenz on 6 March 1923 and raised from 1933 in Hagen, in the Ruhr, who from the 1960s was one of the most popular humorists in the German-speaking world. After acting at the theatres of Hagen, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen, he made his first solo radio appearance on NDR's New Year's Eve programme on 31 December 1961 with his own piece, Der Schwiegermuttermörder, then his television debut in March 1962, his first tour, Stegreifgeschichten, and his first two records in 1963, and the press hailed him as the heir to Karl Valentin.

For more than twenty years he played Adolf Tegtmeier, a Ruhr everyman whose dialect, wordplay and unshakeable everyday logic sent up the people and events of his time; his television programmes, among them ZDF's Tegtmeiers Reisen (1972 to 1980), reached audience shares above 50 per cent in the 1970s, and songs such as Bottroper Bier became cult classics. He received the Großes Verdienstkreuz (the Federal Cross of Merit) in 1987 and the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1990, and died in Herne on 15 March 1994.