Karl Valentin

Biography

Karl Valentin, whose real name is Valentin Ludwig Fey, began an apprenticeship as a carpenter in 1897 after attending a private school. Two years later he met Gisela Royes, his future wife. Two daughters were born from this union. Between 1899 and 1901, Valentin worked as a journeyman carpenter. The following year he attended the Strebel comedy school in Munich. He made his first appearance on October 1, 1901 under his stage name Karl Valentin. His father died during this performance. Valentin then ran the Falk und Fey shipping business together with his mother, which was sold as a bankrupt company in 1906. In the same year, Valentin moved with his family to Zittau in Saxony, his mother's hometown. In 1907 he started a tour. But success with the self-built musical device "Living Orchestrion" failed to materialize and Valentin returned to Munich. There he initially worked in an inn. From 1908 onward he had success with his monologues "The Aquarium" and was hired by the Volkssängerbühne in the "Frankfurter Hof". Valentin's comedy was based on the grotesque language of his long body, on funny puns and slapstick. His jokes often hit the audience or himself. The pessimism and tragic character of his comedy had a real background. Valentin often chafed against reality, against official or social circumstances or against his fellow human beings. In 1911 he met Elisabeth Wellano, his later stage partner as Lisl Karlstadt. During this time he married Gisela Royes. In 1912/13, the first silent film that has survived to this day was released with the title "Karl Valentin's Wedding", in which he exposed the marriage institution to satire. In his enthusiasm for the medium of film, Karl Valentin made around 40 films, which were often based on his stage jokes. In 1914 the first works on the program "Tingeltangel" were created, which also contains the well-known sketch "The Orchestra Rehearsal". Exempt from military service for health reasons, Karl Valentin gave almost 120 performances in hospitals during the First World War. From 1915 he directed the Munich cabaret "Wien-München". Together with Berthold Brecht, Valentin parodied his play "Drumming in the Night" at the Munich Kammerspiele. In 1922/23 the comedian appeared alongside Brecht, Erich Engel, Lisl Karlstadt and Blandine Ebinger in the surrealist film "Mysteries of a Hairdressing Salon". During this time Valentin performed abroad for the first time. His first guest appearance in Berlin in 1923 was enthusiastically received by Alfred Kerr and Kurt Tucholsky. He was called a "word picker" because of his linguistic acrobatics. Valentin's last known silent film, "Der Sonderling", was made in 1929. Two years later he opened his own theater in the Goethe Hall on Leopoldstrasse in Munich. Clashes with the police arose because of fire safety requirements. In 1932 he took part in his first sound film "The Bartered Bride". He adopted a skeptical attitude towards the Nazi regime, but made no political statements. In 1934, Karl Valentin opened his "Panoptikum" as an exhibition of horror and nonsense items such as a glass of Berlin air. But the project initially failed until it was reopened the following year - but with the same failure. After the Nazi henchmen banned the film "The Inheritance", in which Valentin took part, because of "miserable tendencies", he rarely received film offers. From 1939 onward, the comedian and his new partner and lover Annemarie Fischer had success with the "Ritterspelunke" project, a mixture of panopticon, pub and theater. Disputes with Nazi authorities were one reason for the closure of the economically successful "Ritterspelunke". The room was supposed to become an air raid shelter. From 1940 to 1947 he did not appear in public, but wrote many dialogue pieces and poems. His last play, "Family Sorrows," was written in 1943. Due to economic hardship, he became a journalist for the Munich Feldpost. After the war, Valentin tried to stay afloat by selling home-made household items. The radio series on Bavarian Radio "It's about Karl Valentin" was discontinued because listeners complained about the excessive pessimism. Radio and record recordings followed in 1946 and a joint appearance with Lisl Karlstadt the following year. Karl Valentin died on February 9, 1948 in Planegg near Munich of a cold caused by malnutrition.