Karl Gerhard


Karl Emil Georg Gerhard, until 1938 Karl Emil Georg Johnson was a Swedish theater director, revue writer and actor. In 1938 he changed his surname to Gerhard and used the pseudonym Karl-Gerhard.

Biography

Karl Emil Georg Johnson was born in Hedvig Eleonora parish in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the son of Frans Emil Jonsson and Jenny Augusta Jonsdotter. In 1916, he appeared as an actor under the direction of Hjalmar Selander at the Nya Teatern in Gothenburg. In 1919, he debuted as a couplet singer at the cabaret Fenixpalatset in Stockholm as successor to Ernst Rolf. For many years, he was an actor in various traveling theater companies.
Through most of his career, he wrote songs and couplets as well as a large number of sketches, dialogues and monologues for performance on the stages of Stockholm and Gothenburg. Many of Karl Gerhard’s plays and songs were politically to the left, and during the 1930s and World War II, they contained clear anti-fascist statements. He composed and sang a number of couplet text that sharply criticized the Swedish government's apathy towards Nazi Germany.
He was married three times: to actresses Mary Johnson , Valborg Geyron and Brita Werner.
He was the father of actor Per Gerhard.

Selected filmography