Percy Adlon


Paul Rudolf Parsifal "Percy" Adlon is a German director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his film Bagdad Café. He is associated with the New German Cinema movement.

Early life

Adlon was born in Munich. He grew up in Ammerland/Starnberger See. He studied art, theater history, and German literature at Munich's Ludwig-Maximilian University; took acting and singing classes; and was a member of the student theater group.

Career

Percy's films are shown and compete regularly at international film festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and others.
He started his professional career as an actor, became interested in radio work, was a narrator and editor of literature series and a presenter and voice-over actor in television for 10 years.
In 1970, he made his first short film for Bavarian television, followed by more than 150 documentary films about art and the human condition. His first one-hour portrait Tomi Ungerer's Landleben started a very successful co-operation with Benigna von Keyserlingk who became Adlon's television producer of documentaries and feature films.
Their first feature film Céleste, drew international attention at Cannes in 1981. Bagdad Cafe started their co-operation with Dietrich v. Watzdorf. The story of Jasmin Münchgstettner and the Café owner Brenda was an international hit. Marianne Sägebrecht whom Percy Adlon discovered in 1979 became a cult figure, and he developed songs with Tony, Oscar, and Grammy award nominated Bob Telson on such songs as "Calling You" a classic.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon have won numerous awards, including top honors in Rio de Janeiro for Bagdad Cafe, and in Montreal for Salmonberries, two Césars, the Ernst-Lubitsch-Award, a Norwegian Amanda Award, the Swedish and the Danish Academy awards, the Prix Humanum, Belgium, prizes in Venice, Chicago, Valladolid, Brussels, Tokyo as well as Bavarian and German Federal Film Awards, among others.
Percy Adlon is the recipient of the Officer's Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany, and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Currently he is working on his new film, Thank You, Thank You. This is the first time that Percy is directing a film he did not write himself.

Personal life

Percy is the great-grandson of Lorenz Adlon, the founder of the Hotel Adlon. Percy was the grandson of Louis Adlon, Sr., who had five children with his first wife Tilly. After almost 15 years of marriage, he met a hotel guest, the German-American Hedwig Leythen, called Hedda, at a New Year's Eve party in the Hotel Adlon, left his wife and children, and in 1922 he married her. It was one of the biggest scandals of Berlin in the 1920s. Tilly moved with her daughter Elisabeth, then two, to the south of Germany, while the other children Susanne Adlon-Meyerhöfer, Lorenz, and twins Carl and Louis were sent to boarding school and later all four emigrated to America.
He grew up in the Bavarian countryside with his mother, Susanne Adlon-Meyerhöfer and attributes the strong, often unconventional, women's roles in his films to his being brought up in this manner. His son, Felix, an accomplished director in his own right, is the former husband of American actress Pamela Adlon and the father of her three daughters.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon live in Pacific Palisades, California.
is a half-brother of Percy, 15 years younger and son of Emil Meyerhöfer.

Awards

Adolf Grimme Awards, Germany 1979
Amanda Awards, Norway 1989
Bavarian Film Awards 1988
Bavarian TV Awards 1997
Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film 1994
Cannes Film Festival 1989
Chicago International Film Festival 1984
César Awards, France 1989
Ernst Lubitsch Award 1988
Film Independent Spirit Awards 1989
French Syndicate of Cinema Critics 1989
Guild of German Art House Cinemas 1989
German Film for Céleste.
Manhattan Film Festival 2012
Medias Central European Film Festival 7+1 2011
Montréal World Film Festival 1991
Robert Festival 1989
Tokyo International Film Festival 1993
Valladolid International Film Festival 1985
Venice Film Festival 1982