“Dittsche” actor Olli Dittrich turns 65. About the eventful life of a cult comedian who got to know most of his idols.
It is unlikely that Olli Dittrich will celebrate his 65th birthday with a lot of pomp. The artist, born on November 20, 1956 in Offenbach, Hesse, has already celebrated his 60th birthday “noiselessly”. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that the ardent admirer of Udo Jürgens (1934-2014) is looking forward to his 66th birthday – because, as is well known, life only really begins there. About the creator and work of a piece of German comedy culture.
When Oliver Michael Dittrich moved to Hamburg with his parents Kurt and Gisela at the age of three, he was “brought home”, as he would later describe it. There he already parodied public figures as a small child. For his grandmother he imitated Federal President Heinrich Lübke (1894-1972): “Without knowing who Heinrich Lübke is. But I heard somewhere that he had such a funny Sauerland dialect.”
Survive from the cabaret? “We played 150 shows a year”
During the tormenting school days for Dittrich, he learned to play the guitar and drums and was already playing at the Hamburg cabaret at the age of 16, and he also played football. “I wanted to become a soccer star”, Dittrich told the WDR show “Zimmer frei” in 2012, “Only then was I always the funniest on the return trip when our club TuS Alstertal lost away, and it was pretty clear that I should rather switch to the humor subject than become a professional soccer player. My great hero was Uwe Seeler. “
In the said “humor subject”, however, Dittrich had to work his way up from far below. Success in his cabaret was denied to him, in the unemployment of the late 1980s he kept himself above water by writing songs for others. During this time he composed around 250 songs, including for James Last (1929-2015) and Die Prinzen (since 1987). In 1989 he recorded his first album under the artist name TIM. The disc only sold 300 times. In order to earn money, he signed on with Hamburg pop bands: “With oldie bands across the country, played 150 shows a year. Played for dancing, in beer tents, played on ships. I had all that behind me,” Dittrich looks up that time back. In addition, he developed the later cult figure Dittsche: “As radio plays that I sent on my answering machine at the end of the 1980s.”
Wigald turning point
Much should change for Olli Dittrich through the acquaintance with Wigald Boning (54). The daily column “Wigalds Bonbons” premiered on the pay TV broadcaster in the early 1990s. The duo shot more than 100 episodes together, and in 1992 they released their first album “Langspielplatte” as “Wigald Boning und Die Doofen” – with reasonable success. In the same year Dittrich had his stage premiere as Dittsche in the newly founded Quatsch Comedy Club in Hamburg: “At that time, Thomas Hermanns had given me the opportunity to do this on stage in the Quatsch Comedy Club, even then without television, without the term comedy on television To play a figure, “remembers Dittrich.
Dittrich became famous throughout Germany as part of the “RTL Saturday Night” ensemble. The nation laughed at his format “Neues vom Spocht”, which was inspired by Heino Jaeger (1938-1997), and the interview satire “Two chairs, one opinion” with Boning. In 1995 Dittrich and Boning received a Grimme Prize for their interviews, in which Dittrich embodied prominent people such as Michael Schumacher (52), Boris Becker (53) or Beate Uhse (1919-2001) and recreated several artificial characters.
Suddenly there
Also in 1995 Dittrich and Boning dared a second attempt as “Die Doofen”, with the success of the album “Songs that the world doesn’t need” and the Single release “Mief” was hardly to be expected in advance. The album reached the top of the German charts, suddenly the duo was booked as the opening act for the stadium tour by Jon Bon Jovi (59). When Dittrich talks about this time, his eyes light up: “You come out and shout: Are you all stupid ?! ‘ And 70,000 hard rock fans: ‘Yes!’ That’s great, of course. ” In 1996 the second album “Melodien für Melonen” was released, and “Die Doofen” sold around 1.5 million records in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. There were prizes for this, including a Bambi, the Echo and the Golden Tuning Fork. Dittrich had risen to the top floor of the “humor subject”.
The “RTL Saturday Night” era ended in 1998, and Dittrich entered the premier league of German entertainment: until 2001 he hosted the outside betting on “Wetten, dass ..?” (ZDF) with Thomas Gottschalk (71) before turning back to comedy in the 2000s. However, neither “Olli, Tiere, Sensationen” nor “Blind Date” with Anke Engelke (55), both of which were shown on ZDF, were particularly successful. Only when the WDR dem Impro format “Dittsche – The Really Real Life” Given a chance, the jack of all trades had found his own TV niche. And in that he has set it up “nicely Muggly”. “Dittsche” has been on the air since 2004, in 2021 Olli Dittrich delivered the 30th season of the cult series alongside Jon Flemming Olsen (56).
Dittrich – The really true success
Because Dittrich remained true to the motto “That would be even nicer, always just doing the same thing”, he slipped into new roles, and he also remained loyal to music. From 2005 he sat on drums with Jon Flemming Olsen’s band Texas Lightning, and in 2006 represented the band with the Platinum single “No No Never” from the album “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch” Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. Also in 2006 he was nominated again for the Grimme Prize for his legendary Franz Beckenbauer parody in “Was tun, Herr Beckenbauer?”, Which was broadcast on the “Harald Schmidt Show”.
Between 2003 and 2011 Dittrich also appeared regularly in the improvisation comedy show “Genial beseben” on Sat.1. At the beginning of 2011, Dittrich published his bestselling autobiography “Dasreal Echt Leben”, for which Germany’s humor supervisor Loriot (1923-2011) wrote the foreword a few months before his death: “It took over 80 years before I found Olli Dittrich for the first time Time across the street. That was very late, but an amazing experience. I met someone whose ideas delight me, especially since they seem to find each other more easily in the dialogues that I still struggle to this day. “
Humor with finesse – Olli Dittrich reinvents himself and enjoys it
With such praise in his luggage, Olli Dittrich has been striving for less flat nonsense and more depth since the beginning of the 2010s. In 2011 he was nominated for the German Acting Award for his performance in the ARD television film “Carl & Bertha” alongside Katja Riemann (58).
Since 2013 Dittrich has been regularly producing paris on German TV genres and mockumentaries for ARD, most recently in December 2020 by Günther Jauch (65) in “House of Trumps – Peter, a German secret” interviewed: “That was a great job,” says Dittrich about his role as Donald Trump’s (75) allegedly forgotten brother Peter.
The “human actor”, as Dittrich calls himself, doesn’t run out of material that quickly – maybe next year for his 66th birthday he will treat himself to a flippant Udo Jürgens parody, because Dittrich still has a motto: “The best things always develop exactly at the moment when you follow them unintentionally and with the greatest possible fun. “