Karl Helmerding
Karl Heinrich Helmerding was a German folk actor and was considered the most popular comedian of all time in Berlin.
Life
Helmerding was born in Berlin as the son of a master locksmith, whose trade he also learned. He also made successful studies in drawing under Johann Gottfried Schadow, and exercised his urge for the theatre on several small stages in his father's city.He made his debut as a professional actor in 1847 in Meissen and then worked for four years at the Hennig Bros. summer theatre in Berlin under director Carli Callenbach, who employed the beginner, who until then had played intriguer and character roles, in the comic field. After being engaged in Sondershausen in the winter of 1850 and in Erfurt in 1851, Helmerding became a member of the Königsstädtisches Theater in 1852 and, after a winter engagement in Cologne in 1854, a member of the Krolloper Theatre in Berlin.
In 1855, he was engaged by Franz Wallner to Posen and soon returned with him to Berlin, where for two decades he was an ornament and pillar of the Königsstädtisches Theater, soon popularly called Wallner-Theater after Wallner, and of the Berlin Lokalposse. He retired from the stage in 1878.
Gotthilf Weisstein describes Helmerding's acting idiosyncrasy in an article on the occasion of the artist's 70th birthday as follows