Zurich Film Festival gives Swiss comedian Emil Steinberger top honour for life’s work

The 91-year-old actor also attended the premiere of the documentary film about his life, Typisch Emil (Typical Emil), directed by Phil Meyer. Keystone-SDA

Swiss actor and cabaret artist Emil Steinberger has been given a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival.

The 91-year-old also attended the premiere of the documentary film about his life, Typisch Emil (Typical Emil), directed by Phil Meyer.

In the film, the Lucerne-born artist recounts his childhood, his great successes and the price of fame. Interview scenes alternate with his legendary sketches, never-before-seen footage and excerpts from the cult film Les faiseurs de Suisses (Swissmakers) (1978), in which he played the lead role.

Almost uninterrupted success

In 1968, the actor and former postal worker founded the Kleintheater cabaret in Lucerne with his first wife, Maja. A year later, Emil, then 36, broke through with his first major programme. Success followed in Germany, Austria and even French-speaking Switzerland, where he performed in French.

+ Turning ‘three times 25’: a 2008 interview with Emil

The Lucerne-born singer retired from the stage for the first time in 1987, at the age of 54. He did not return until the early 2000s, in his early seventies. He then toured for fifteen years with a new programme and public readings.

Role of his second wife Niccel

In the documentary, Emil also talks about his love affair with his second wife Niccel, a German woman 32 years younger, who he met in New York during a six-year stay there in the 1990s.

For the past twenty years, she has worked as her husband’s manager and co-produced the documentary Typisch Emil. The couple has been living in Basel for the past ten years, after spending fifteen years in Montreux, canton Vaud, on their return from New York.

Translated from German by DeepL/sb

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