Ellen Tiedtke
Former GDR actress died
Ellen Tiedtke became famous as the clumsy “Ellentie” in the GDR.
© imago/Hoffmann
The former GDR actress Ellen Tiedtke is dead. She died at the age of 91.
Mourning for Ellen Tiedtke (1930-2022): The actress, cabaret artist and singer died on February 1st at the age of 91. Her biographer Jürgen Klammer and her trusted author Inge Trisch confirmed this to the German Press Agency. Under the name “Ellentie” she presented the children’s program of the same name on GDR television in the 1980s and became known to a wide audience.
Tiedtke was born in 1930 in what was then East Prussia. From 1949 to 1952 she studied at drama schools in Leipzig and Schwerin before she was engaged at the Stadttheater Cottbus in 1954. There she became a member of the cabaret ensemble “Die Sticklinge”. Further appearances as a cabaret artist followed in 1956 and 1957 in the “Leipziger Pfeffermühle” and in the mid-1960s in the Berlin ensemble “Die Distel”. In 1961 Tiedtke was awarded the GDR Art Prize and the GDR National Prize.
Her breakthrough as “Ellentie”
But her big breakthrough came in 1983 as the clumsy presenter “Ellentie”. The children’s program of the same name was one of the most popular formats on GDR television. The show was discontinued in 1991.
Tiedtke was also seen in a number of films, such as the short films “Das Stacheltier” (1960 and 1961), “Ohne Pass in Fremd Betten” (1965) and “Die Verlobte” (1980).