Apanatschi, sweetheart, Mrs. Leimbach-Knorr – Uschi Glas played these and many other iconic roles. Now she is celebrating her 80th birthday.
Actress Uschi Glas is celebrating her 80th birthday this Saturday (March 2nd). The Protestant girl from the Lower Bavarian province became one of the biggest German series and film stars. After her first small supporting role in an “Edgar Wallace” film, her career quickly took off. Many milestones adorn her biography.
From the “unruly woman” from Landau to the Munich film star
Uschi Glas was born as the youngest of four siblings on March 2, 1944 in Landau an der Isar in the Dingolfing-Landau district in Lower Bavaria. But she didn’t stay there for too long. “I was the stubborn one who didn’t want to just accept what others asked of her. When my father hit the table and said ‘Stop it now, you accept what I say’, I didn’t want to accept that […] Because of my objection, I often had to sit at the cat’s table while eating,” she remembers little Uschi in an interview with “Bild am Sonntag.” She also infuriated the teachers at school with her willingness to discuss things.
She completed school with a secondary school leaving certificate. She then worked as an accountant in Dingolfing and from 1964 in Munich as a secretary in various companies. At the same time, she became more and more enthusiastic about acting. Back then, as Ursula Glas, she got her first small role in the “Edgar Wallace” film “The Uncanny Monk” (1965). She later appeared in larger roles in other crime films.
Uschi Glas took on her first leading role alongside Lex Barker (1919-1973), Pierre Brice (1929-2015) and Götz George (1983-2016) in the Karl May film adaptation “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi” (1966). . Her breakthrough. There was the first Bravo Otto in bronze (1979), nine more were to follow over the course of her career.
And the next film, “To the Matter, Sweetheart” (1968), was also a great success. Not least because of her legendary underwear scene at the police station. She was actually supposed to take off all her clothes in the film, but she refused and suggested that she wear the white corsage instead. “May Spils, the director, thought it was good. I didn’t get many other roles because I refused to get naked,” she says today. The film, which dealt with the attitude towards life of young people at the time, became cult.
A year after its release, the actress got the first (1969) of three Bambis. This was followed by many school comedies in the popular “Pauker” series (from 1968) about the timpani terror Pepe Nietnagel (Hansi Kraus, born 1952), whose sister Uschi played Glas.
With series hits about the TV dream couple and excursions into the music world
The actress also ventured into the pop music business from 1968. Among other things, she recorded the single “If your heart burns” (1970) with the successful South Tyrolean producer and founder of the Munich Musikland Studios, Giorgio Moroder (born 1940). The two albums “Uschi Glas sings the most beautiful Christmas songs” (2002) and “Sonne, Mond und Sternen – Uschi Glas sings the most beautiful German songs” (2003) were created much later.
Uschi Glas was really successful as a series star. After “Polizeiinspektion 1” (1977-1988) and “Our Most Beautiful Years” (1983-1985), the third big series hit followed with “Zwei Münchner in Hamburg” (1989-1993) with the then TV dream couple Uschi Glas and the Elmar Wepper (1944-2023), who died unexpectedly in the fall. “Elmar Wepper was not only a favorite colleague of mine, but also a real friend,” she told “RTL.de” shortly after his death became known.
Uschi Glas also attracted an audience of millions to the screens with these series. In “Anna Maria – A Woman Goes Her Way” (1994-1997) she played a gravel pit owner and in “Sylvia – A Class of Her Own” (1998-2000) she played a teacher.
Professionally, the awards kept raining down. The actress received her first Golden Camera in 1984, two more followed as well as countless other awards from German-speaking countries. But that’s not all: in 1992 she was presented with the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Federal Cross of Merit followed in 1998. The most recent trophies to date – three in number – come from 2019. By then she had long been one of the “Fack ju Göhte” stars.
Uschi Glas: “You need a pound of humor for roles like this”
Uschi Glas demonstrated a lot of humor and once again great acting skills in the successful films “Fack ju Göthe” (2013), “Fack ju Göhte 2” (2015) and “Fack ju Göthe 3” (2017). In it she played the burnt-out teacher Ingrid Leimbach-Knorr.
The actress is happy to play such roles, as she confirmed in an interview with spot on news: “That’s right, I actually really enjoyed my Ingrid Leimbach-Knorr from the ‘Fack ju Göhte’ films. For roles like that “You need a pound of humor – but I have that, thank God.”
Two long-term marriages, three children and three grandchildren
Uschi Glas’s first marriage also took place at the time of the first series success. She was married to film producer Bernd Tewaag (born 1948) from 1981 to the end of February 2003. The couple had three children: Benjamin, called Ben (47, “Battle of the Reality Stars”, “Celebrity Big Brother”), Alexander (born 1982) and Julia Tewaag (born 1986). The latter became the mother of twins at the end of 2021. “I am very happy and am really looking forward to our second and third grandchildren. We now have three little boys in our family,” the actress was happy at the time in an interview with “Bild”. Her first grandchild, also a boy, was born in 2015. “He’s a really adorable boy. Very clever and already a little personality,” she also raved about the son of her firstborn and the actress Alexia von Wismar in 2021.
After a headline-grabbing separation, Uschi Glas married her new partner Dieter Hermann in autumn 2005 at Lustheim Castle near Munich. It is the second marriage for both of them. She met the entrepreneur at a golf tournament. They lead a scandal-free life and are welcome guests on red carpets, such as at the German Film Ball in Munich at the beginning of the year. For her, the event was a kind of family reunion, she told spot on news on the red carpet. “You always see people you haven’t seen for a long time. I find it very cozy,” explained the actress, who always enjoys appearing on the dance floor with her husband.
With him, Uschi Glas also founded the brotZeit e.V. association. V., which provides free breakfast to school children nationwide. Her social and social commitment from the 1990s onwards has also won many awards.
On March 2nd, Uschi Glas celebrates her 80th birthday. She already suspected what she would get from her husband: “It will probably be a trip, just the two of us. I don’t know where yet,” she told “Bild am Sonntag” last weekend. A nice gift that she gave herself “and all women” for the cradle celebration is her new biography “I was never a sweetheart” (from February 28th, 224 pages, mosaic, 24 euros).