André van Duin (77) will reach the great milestone of sixty years in the profession this spring. And in honor of this, the book ‘Everything about André’, which Jan Vriend wrote about the comedian and presenter, was published today. “Sixty years in the business, that’s quite something. Although in retrospect it really flew by,”
he says to RTL News.
It is already the fourth book to be published about Van Duin, the man who seems to reinvent himself every time. “Jan came up with it, he wanted to make a nice book with anecdotes. It remains sweet and nice that people do that for you,” says the presenter of Heel Holland Bakt.
The gentlemen know each other well. “So there was no reason to say: I won’t do that. I trust Jan completely.” André is very happy with the result. “It has become a fun, readable flip-through book.”
Career switch
Staying in the spotlight for sixty years is a great achievement. “I was on television for the first time in 1964, then it started rolling. And it is still going successfully, much to my own astonishment.” Van Duin has even made a career change in recent years. “I went from hats and caps and carnival to presenter and actor.”
Amazing success
That is something that the interpreter of retirement home resident Evert Duiker in ‘The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen’ would not have dared to dream ten years ago. “After fifty years in the business, I thought: now it has happened. But Jan Slagter from Omroep MAX gave me the opportunity to do something different.” He asked the comedian to help present Heel Holland Bakt. “And I didn’t like it at first, but to my amazement it became a great success.”