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Rolf Schimpf turns 100. © Andreas Gebert/dpa
It is quite possible that Rolf Schimpf is the oldest out-of-service TV investigator in the world: he can look back on an entire century. He immediately nibbled on the large number on the cake.
Munich – Rolf Schimpf was “The Old Man” almost 40 years ago. As Chief Inspector Leo Kress, the actor hunted criminals in the ZDF crime series of the same name in Munich from 1986. A role that made him famous. He shaped the internationally successful Friday crime series for around 20 years. Now he lives up to the series title. On Thursday (November 14th) Rolf Schimpf turns 100 years old. The celebrations last three days with family and close friends, with good food, white sausages and wheat beer – non-alcoholic, as Schimpf’s good friend Detlef Vetten reveals.
Sweet temptations for your 100th birthday
How is the former TV star, who now lives in a retirement home in the south of Munich, doing? “His radius has become very narrow, he no longer likes to go out,” reports Vetten. And he loves good food. He finds it particularly difficult to resist sweets, as photographer Barbara Volkmer found out. She and her husband Detlef Vetten visit their old friend regularly. For a photo before the big birthday, they brought a Sachertorte, sweet chocolate decorated with the number 100 made of red marzipan. While Volkmer was unpacking her photography equipment, the temptation was apparently too great for Schimpf. “He already had number 1 in his hand and bit into it!” says Vetten. He also nibbled on the cream decoration. “And with that Rolf-Schimpf look.”
It was this mischievousness with which the Berlin native won over the audience, coupled with subtle humor and a polite, quiet manner. A gentleman who still comes to the fore today. “The elegance from before is there on good days, but on bad days he’s just old and he doesn’t like it,” says Vetten.
Glorious commissioner times
What remains are memories of the glory days when Schimpf had grown so much into his role as a detective that he even had the confidence to solve a murder case in real life – jokingly, of course. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior also became aware of him. In 1989 he was appointed honorary commissioner. “Thought-headed, sharp and always likeable, that’s how we imagine a good police officer to be today,” praised Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) on the occasion of his 100th birthday. “And the standards he set in investigations are still unmatched in reality today: solving even the most difficult cases in just under an hour.” With his acting performance, he certainly inspired some people to decide on a police career.
“That was it then”
Acting wasn’t actually young Rolf Schimpf’s first choice. After the Second World War, he wanted to study medicine in his early 20s, but couldn’t get a place. So he decided to turn his passion for hunting and fishing into a career and enrolled in forestry studies, but didn’t last long. Schimpf once recalled that it seemed too strenuous and too long for him. It was only when he came to the theater and tried his hand at acting that he became clear. “That was it, I knew where I belonged!”
He remained on duty as a TV police officer for more than 20 years. © picture alliance / dpa
He attends drama school in Stuttgart and has been playing theater and appearing in front of the camera since the 1950s, for example for the ARD crime series “Tatort” or for the ZDF formats “SOKO 5113” and “Mensch Bachmann”. Fame followed in 1986 when he took over for “Der Alte” Siegfried Lowitz, alias TV Commissioner Erwin Köster. Schimpf created a fan base worldwide, from Italy and France to Abu Dhabi, Brazil and South Africa.
Mourning, moving and the happiness of fame
After his departure in 2007, things became quiet for him. In 2010 he moved into a posh retirement home in Munich with his wife, the actress Ilse Zielstorff. When his “Ille” died in 2013, after almost 50 happy years of marriage, Schimpf was heartbroken. In 2023, at the age of 99, he will have to give up his beautiful two-room apartment in the retirement home, for financial reasons, as they say. He moves to a cheaper facility. A room without familiar things, his hunting binoculars or his elegant walking stick, as Vetten and Volkmer report. “In the retirement home in the south of Munich, the patients are kept clean and fed. There is no time for more,” they write in their biography “Survived – Rolf Schimpf turns 100,” which will be published at the end of November.
The oldest of all the old
But the actor is not forgotten. ZDF wants to congratulate you on your special day and refers to many old episodes with Leo Kress in the media library. Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss, Schimpf’s assistant Axel Richter for years in “The Old Man,” enthuses: “Rolf was really top-notch as a colleague,” he told the German Press Agency. At some point he no longer heard so well, “but understandably took out his hearing aids when he was filming.” Sanoussi-Bliss ensured that he didn’t miss any missions by secretly nudging the older man.
Schimpf spent almost 50 happy years of marriage with actress Ilse Zielstorff. © Ursula Düren/dpa
