Ruth Maria Kubitschek wrote German TV history as “Spatzl”
Published: Sunday, Jun 2nd 2024, 12:00
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A versatile talent - such a compliment was an understatement in the case of Ruth Maria Kubitschek. She was a painter, an author and, of course, an actress. Sometimes the charming one, sometimes the schemer. Kubitschek lent her roles "style, poise and grandeur", was the verdict of the jury at an award ceremony in Bavaria in 2013. On Saturday, the artist died in her adopted home of Switzerland at the age of 92.
Just two years ago, she had given up her house in Fruthwilen on Lake Constance with its famous "Garden of Aphrodite", which she also paid tribute to in a book, and moved to Ascona in Ticino. Gardening had become too arduous for her. In her last major interview, she told Stern magazine in December 2023 "I think everything has been said now."
Kubitschek made her mark on the German television and film scene in countless roles. She remains unforgotten as "Spatzl" in the ARD cult series "Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz" at the beginning of the 80s. In the role of the suffering wife, she let her busy movie husband Helmut Fischer get away with all his escapades when he put on his faithful dachshund look.
"Kir Royal" and "Dreamboat"
In 1985, she played the tabloid newspaper publisher von Unruh in the series "Kir Royal", which took the mickey out of Munich's chic crowd. Her acting performance as the nasty schemer Margot Balbeck was shown from 1987 to 1990 in the ZDF series "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs". Kubitschek appeared in "Traumschiff", "Tatort" and numerous feature films. She also acted in theater time and again, although she preferred working in front of the camera.
"Frau Ella" was her last film in 2013, based on a novel by Florian Beckerhoff. In the comedy, Kubitschek played an old lady who is abducted from hospital to France by a cab driver so that she can find her childhood sweetheart again. Kubitschek told Südwestrundfunk (SWR) in 2019 that such a script was a stroke of luck: "When you're as old as me, what are you supposed to play? Some old woman? There's no material left." Kubitschek painted flower motifs all the more, as he had done during his career. The red carpet was always a torture for her. The competition, the flesh-painting - she never had the figure for it.
Beginning acting as a four-year-old - with mishap
Kubitschek was born on the edge of the Ore Mountains in the Czech Republic in 1931. At the end of the Second World War, the family fled north with five children. She was given a farm in Saxony-Anhalt. Ruth Maria's fondest wish was to become an actress. "When I was four, I played a Chinese actress for the first time," she told Stern. "I was so excited that I shat my pants during the performance." Her parents initially didn't want to know about such a career choice, but she prevailed. After drama schools in Halle (an der Saale) and Weimar, she made her debut as Fina in Brecht's "Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti" in Halle.
Within a few years, she became a star of GDR television and DEFA films. Kubitschek married the opera director Götz Friedrich in 1953 and had a son. However, the artistic confines of the GDR did not suit the committed actress, and so she stayed in West Germany in 1959 after an engagement with her son. Kubitschek's second German career began at the Schlosstheater in Celle.
Great love and partnership with distance
Her husband remained in the GDR at the time. They divorced in the early 60s. Kubitschek then spent 40 years with Wolfgang Rademann, the television producer and creator of hit series such as "Das Traumschiff" and "Die Schwarzwaldklinik". Friedrich died in 2000, Rademann in 2016. Rademann and Kubitschek had never lived together, but were a happy couple, according to them. The loss affected them deeply, Kubitschek said in 2016.
Kubitschek has always spent time in the Swiss Lake Constance region since the 1980s. At some point, she escaped the hustle and bustle of Munich altogether. She was naturalized as a "Swiss citizen" in 2013. She said in 2019 that she loved the Swiss reserve. "If I lived in Munich, I would go megalomaniac," she said. People would come up to her all the time. "Hello Spatzl, can we take a photo?"
Kubitschek on wrinkles and pain
Kubitschek dealt with the big questions of life in her books. "Angels, elves, earth spirits", for example. Or "Growing older gracefully" in conjunction with the advice to accept wrinkles and pain without becoming a "whiner". That was Kubitschek's own view. She is at peace with herself and is not afraid of death, she said in 2019. "Something completely different must come in the next life," she said, "I'm looking forward to it."
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