ORF and Sony Music honor Peter Alexander's 100th birthday with films, documentary, and album

Career and Artistic Development

On June 29 at 8:15 p.m., ORF 2 and ORF ON will air a reunion with the documentary "Hier ist ein Mensch: Peter Alexander." On the actual birthday, "Kultur Heute" will honor the entertainer with a dedicated special. The channel will thus accompany the anniversary day with editorial features.

Peter Alexander Ferdinand Maximilian Neumayer, his full name, began his career as a comedian with small appearances at the Wiener Bürgertheater, tried his hand at cabaret and at the broadcaster Rot-Weiß-Rot, before switching to the Schlager genre in 1952, where he immediately made his mark as a singer. His very first song, "Das machen nur die Beine von Dolores," was a full success. This laid the foundation for an unparalleled career that would make him the most important entertainment figure in German-language television in the decades that followed.

After a year of British wartime captivity, Alexander had begun studying medicine, which he traded for acting training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, which he completed in 1948. With operetta films such as "Hochzeitsnacht im Paradies" or "Die lustige Witwe," he won over additional audience demographics. The versatile repertoire of film, operetta, and Schlager made him a public favorite across several generations.

Personal Tragedies

From 1969 onward, he had his own TV show, in which he could welcome a star-studded lineup that "ranged from Liza Minnelli and Tom Jones to Plácido Domingo, Johnny Cash, Richard Chamberlain, and Montserrat Caballé. "Peter Alexanders Wunschkonzert" in 1973 reached a German record with a 79 percent audience share. His very last "Peter Alexander Show" flickered across screens in 1995, to be followed one year later by a birthday special. In a show for his 80th birthday, he appeared only via video message.

In his private life, Alexander's life was marked by severe tragedies. In 1952, he married actress Hilde Haagen, who gave up her career to manage her husband's going forward. In 2003, his wife passed away. Another tragedy followed in 2009, when his daughter lost her life in a car accident in Thailand. Alexander's own passing at the age of 84 prompted a tremendous media response in 2011. Peter Alexander's death in February 2011 marked for many the end of an era of Austrian entertainment.

Anniversary Album

The ORF homage is musically accompanied by a release from Sony Music. On Friday, Sony Music will release the compilation "Seine größten Erfolge und mehr" on three CDs, two LPs, and as a download. It contains 70 or 29 hits (on golden vinyl), respectively, in chronological order. This makes the artist's musical legacy tangible for younger listeners as well.

Numerous companions have honored Alexander over the years. Rudi Carrell called him the "Gigant des Showbusiness," as Rudi Carrell put it. This characterization is reflected in ORF's programming plans, which place the work of a man who permanently shaped the German-language entertainment phenomenon at center stage.

The programming highlights and the album mark the beginning of a series of tributes that will accompany the 100th birthday of the artist born Peter Alexander Neumayer in Vienna in 1926 as the son of a bank clerk throughout the summer. ORF is thus sending a clear signal for the cultural significance of the singer and actor in public-service broadcasting.

With the combination of feature film classics, a biographical documentary, an editorial special, and a comprehensive music album, ORF and Sony Music aim to create a comprehensive monument to Peter Alexander's 100th birthday. The program combines cinematic, musical, and biographical material into an overall survey of the entertainer's life work.