Thielscher, Guido

(1859-1941)

   Actor. Over the course of a career that spanned nearly six decades, the popular Thielscher came to be known as il Guido grandissimo, one of the most popular performers in Berlin's theater history. Standing five feet, six inches tall and weighing more than 250 pounds, Thielscher began as a circus clown. At age 18 he got his first acting job at Berlin's Belle-Alliance Theater. One of his biggest hits in the Wilhelmine era was the title role in the 1893 Berlin premiere of Brandon Thomas's Charley's Aunt. Otto Brahm improbably engaged him for the 1898-1899 season at the Deutsches Theater for Friedrich Schiller's Die Räuber (The Robbers), but when Thielscher appeared in a nightshirt as the befuddled father of the feuding Moor brothers, Brahm's normally reverent and circumspect audience convulsed in laughter. Thielscher soon departed the Deutches for the familiar territory of Berlin's boulevard theaters, where he maintained his acrobatic skills well into his 60s. His most significant and popular work awaited him in the 1920s, when he often played leading roles in the comedies of Franz Arnold and Ernst Bach, many of which they wrote especially for him.