In the 1990s, Harald Schmidt became a TV personality. Today, however, his late-night show would be canceled immediately, the entertainer suspects. A look back at a career whose time is over – but not that of its protagonist.
65. Others have long since retired. Go fishing or walk the dog. They stand for hours in front of construction site fences or in the Tchibo and can’t get out of their favorite pub. Others do that. But Harald Schmidt is not one of them.
The entertainer celebrated his 65th birthday on Thursday (August 18). As has just been reported in the press, he will then be entitled to a pension of 272 euros a month – an amount that he says he would like to collect “hard as nails”. Since the wealthy millionaire and native Swabian may have saved quite a bit for his old age, he can enjoy his retirement completely relaxed. No appointments, no performances, no rush – and lots of time?
“Not true!” he protested in an interview with the editorial network Germany (RND) last month. “I have to learn the lines. I did an evening at the Zurich Opera for the premiere of ‘Rheingold’. In the fall I’m playing an operetta in Vienna. And I’m also returning to the theater in Stuttgart. You see, I have more than enough to do . I’m just not on this hamster wheel anymore.”
Well, there’s also the part-time job as cruise director Oskar Schifferle in the ZDF series “Das Traumschiff”. Schmidt also works as a coach in the Amazon Prime format “One Mic Stand”, in which well-known comedians prepare other celebrities without show experience for comedy appearances. In a way, he does it with his left hand: “I can encourage someone who has certain basic requirements to be world class. To put it bluntly: I get the last whistle talked about. It’s often just about confirmation and encouragement not to be discouraged.”
Schmidt takes the 65 extremely calmly. “A dream age! If I had known how great it was, I would have turned 65 earlier. I can only recommend it.” He is also in good health. “Toi, toi, toi! Which of course doesn’t mean that I could go out tomorrow and fall over. But since I’ve never done any sport, I don’t have any broken joints. An hour and a half after getting up I’m in top form. But I need this time then beautiful.”
He was once the nation’s biggest and best gossip, feared and loved by intellectuals and the lower echelon alike. “Dirty Harry” they reverently called him, also chief cynic, doyen of the united German irony guild gag
It all started after graduating from the Hölderlin High School in Nürtingen near Stuttgart. That’s when young Schmidt knew that he wanted to be an actor, and after studying at the State University for Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart it became his learned profession. He had his first appearance in 1978 as a wordless extra with the great theater man Claus Peymann in Anton Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” at the Württemberg State Theater. From 1981 to 1985 he was with the Augsburg Municipal Theater, in the first role in “Nathan the Wise” he played a Mameluke who only had to say: “Just come in here!”. This has increased significantly over time.
From 1984 to 1989 he acquired his actual tools as a first-strike weapon in German TV entertainment at the Düsseldorf Kom(m)ödchen, where he was apprenticed to the great cabaret artist Lore Lorentz (1920-1994). After that he was fit for other tasks. In addition to the WDR game show “Psst” (1990-1995), he presented the satirical and comedy show “Schmidteinander” (1990-1994) with the Austrian satirist Herbert Feuerstein. This format made the cheeky Schlacks Harald Schmidt a universally accepted TV personality.
He became a cult figure with his late-night talk show “Harald Schmidt”, which was broadcast on various channels for 19 years from 1995 to 2014. His trademark: a cheeky, taboo-free and sometimes outrageous way of dealing with victims of fun. Some sued and went to court, like ex-daily news announcer Susan Stahnke. Schmidt’s Poland jokes led to foreign policy upsets until the talker was invited to Poland by the Polish ambassador and then gave up his mockery.
Here is a small selection of his sayings:
He is convinced that such cheekiness is history once and for all. He tells RND: “Today my show would be canceled after a week. Every year on International Women’s Day I opened the show with the words: ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Gentlemen, remember: Today is International Women’s Day. Ask Your wife a rose in the cleaning water.’ Would be impossible today. The director would have to point out immediately that he cleans at home himself.”
Dirty Harry – this is Harald Schmidt’s page, which is well known throughout Germany. The fact that he also took part in feature films such as “Nich’ mit Leo” (1995), “Late Show” (1999) and “From Searching and Finding Love” (2005) by Helmut Dietl and the inventor of the mini-series “Labaule
His collaboration with comedian Oliver Pocher in “Schmidt
An appearance by Reyhan Sahin, better known as Lady Bitch Ray, in April 2008 was particularly bad. The rapper gave Pocher a jar that allegedly contained her vaginal secretions. The otherwise cheeky Pocher was surprisingly taciturn when the gift was presented. Only after the subsequent performance by the Norwegian singer Maria Mena did he regain courage. “Of course it was a very difficult title that you chose. You didn’t hit every note completely, you know that yourself. But I hope the audience will call for you. And here’s another gift for you,” he said in his Dieter Bohlen voice and pulled out the box with the slime.
While Maria Mena, who doesn’t speak German, didn’t know what was going on, Harald Schmidt burst at the disrespect. “But that’s completely uncharming now,” he said to Pocher, visibly upset. “Such a small, lousy guy who, when she is given a cunt secretion, is so small with a hat and then rolls it in to a foreign guest who doesn’t understand German. Uncool. Oliver Pocher, next time he understood it.”
Schmidt doesn’t talk much about his charity commitment: he supports the center against expulsions and is patron of the German Depression Aid Foundation. He once scoffed in the “Frankfurter Rundschau”: “Professor Hegerl told me that he had discovered a humanistic core in me beneath the cynical surface. I really liked that. Since then I’ve seen it the same way.”
It is said that self-mockery is the art of pulling yourself through cocoa so that it still tastes really good afterwards. In this respect, Harald Schmidt is a connoisseur. He has become more relaxed and maintains a mild self-irony that is obviously good for him, for example when he judges himself that he is “basically someone who comes on stage and says: ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Come on woman at the doctor’.”
After a Schmidt performance in Munich’s Hinterhoftheater, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” came to the conclusion in 2010 that on such stages “the people who protect us from the media idiocy mature. Once they’re gone, all that’s left is drinking.” Dirty Harry would probably only add one word to that: Cheers!
