Helmerding, Karl

(1822-1899)

   Actor. An outstanding comic actor of 19th-century Berlin, Helmerding began acting when as a teenager he joined a touring troupe. Thereafter he worked briefly in Erfurt and Cologne, but he spent the remainder of his career in various Berlin theaters, usually cast as the perplexed little Berliner at odds with the big city, with its anonymous political and economic forces, or with life itself. As he aged, he began playing journeymen or traveling salesmen without prospects who wooed a young girl with promises to take her to the exotic locales of Pomerania or even the Rhineland, and later father roles, in which he tried to protect his daughters from the same irresponsible youths he had played earlier. His most significant work was at Berlin's Wallner Theater, where he played leading roles in David Kalisch's "local comedies" featuring recognizable Berlin types. Helmerding's masterpiece was Gustav Weigelt, the nearly illiterate yet prosperous parvenu in Adolph L'Ar-ronge's 1873 comedy My Leopold. Weigelt was a beleaguered father but proud member of the entrepreneurial Wilhelmine establishment. Helmerding was said to be Otto von Bismarck's favorite actor, largely because he claimed to be one of the "Iron Chancellor's" closest advisers. Helmerding was particularly gifted in contorting his body to fit the characters he played and was a master of several Berlin dialects — though his voice was usually hoarse and high-pitched.