Evelyn Hamann

Evelyn Hamann (6 August 1942 – 28 October 2007) was a German actress. She was born into a family of musicians in Hamburg, Germany: her father Bernhard Hamann was a violinist, the concertmaster of the NDR symphony orchestra, and founder of the Hamann Quartet; her mother was a singer and music teacher, and her brother Gerhard was a professor of cello at the Trossingen School of Music. Evelyn Hamann liked to keep her private life out of the public eye, so little is known about her life off-camera. Between 1964 and 1976 she was married to Hans Walter Braun, whom she met while acting in Hamburg. After her divorce she lived with her partner, actor Stefan Behrens. She died during the night of 28 to 29 October 2007 in Hamburg, as a result of lymphoma, which had been diagnosed 10 months previously.

After an acting course at Hamburg University of Music and the Performing Arts, where she was taught by Eduard Marks, among others, Hamann started a career on the stage. She took on small roles at the Thalia Theater, and from 1968 her stage career took her to Göttingen, Heidelberg and Bremen, where she played Marthe Schwertlein in Goethe's Urfaust.

In 1976, Evelyn Hamann first became known to a wide television audience by acting with Loriot in a large number of comedy sketches. With her straight face and dry humour, she wrote television history as "Fräulein Renate" battling for love with her stuffy boss, "Fräulein Hildegard" in the legendary sketch where her devotee prances, having a noodle in his face, or as "Frau Hoppenstedt" proud of her "yodelling degree" which would give her something to build a career on when the children left home.

In one famous scene, Die Englische Ansage ("The English Announcement") [1], Hamann plays a German television presenter summarising the plot of an English television series with a plethora of English "th"-sounds, a sound which does not exist in the German language. She struggles with names such as "North Cothelstone Hall" and "Lord and Lady Hesketh-Fortescue", becoming more and more flustered as she struggles to say the words, eventually mispronouncing the German words as well.

Hamann also had the most important female role in the Loriot films Ödipussi (1987) and Pappa ante Portas (1991).

Hamann remained popular into the 1980s, playing the part of housekeeper Karsta Michaelis in the television series The Black Forest Clinic and later playing "Thea" in the weekly medical drama Der Landarzt (The Country Doctor).

From 1992 she acted in the title role of the successful ARD television series Adelheid und ihre Mörder (Adelheid and her murderers) along with Heinz Baumann.

Evelyn Hamann also made a name for herself by reading authors' works at literary readings and for audiobooks, including Patricia Highsmith's crime thrillers.

Television

• 1985-1989 - The Black Forest Clinic
• 1987 - Evelyn und die Männer
• 1989/1991/1992 - Der Millionenerbe
• 1989/1991/1992 - Kein pflegeleichter Fall
• 1991 - Glückliche Reise
• 1992 - Vater braucht eine Frau
• 1992-1999 - Evelyn Hamann Specials
• 1993-2005 - Evelyn Hamanns Geschichten aus dem Leben
• 1992-2006 - Adelheid und ihre Mörder
• 1995 - Das Traumschiff
• 1998 - Wut im Bauch
• 1999 - Ehe-Bruch

Film

• 1987 - Ödipussi
• 1990 - Pappa ante Portas

• 1977 - Goldene Kamera ("Best supporting role" with Loriot)
• 1987 - Goldene Kamera (3rd place for "Best Comedy" for "Evelyn und die Männer")
• 1993 - Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1997 - Telestar "Best actress in a series" for "Adelheid und ihre Mörder"
• 1997 - Bayerischer Fernsehpreis "Best actress in a series" for Beste "Adelheid und ihre Mörder"
• 1997 - Goldene Kamera
• 1998 - Honorary Superintendent of the Bavarian Police Force
• 2000 - Deutscher Videopreis (with Loriot)
• 2002 - Münchhausen-Preis
• Goldener Löwe