Alfred Rasser

Alfred Rasser, one of Switzerland's most popular comedians, was born in 1907 in Basle. Although his most famous role was that of the auxiliary troop soldier Theophil Läppli, a nicely retarded representative of the Swiss army that Rasser created not independently from Jaroslav Hasek's "Svejk" and which he performed during decades in his own theatre at Spalenberg in Basle as well as in TV and on vinyl recordings, in guest stage appearances and in three movies which he directed himself ("Läppli am Zoll", 1954; "HD-Soldat Läppli" 1959; "Demokrat Läppli 1961"), he had quite a remarkable film career and played at the side of Therese Giehse in Hans Richter's "Hans im Glück" (1937) and in Franz Schnyder's "Das Gespensterhaus", in Max Haufler's "La faute de l'abbé Mouret" (1937) and "Emil, mer mues halt rede mitenand" (1941) and had a memorizing role in Leopold Lindtberg's "Die Missbrauchten Liebesbriefe" (1940). Rasser also appeared together with Paul Hubschmid and Gustav Knuth in "Palace Hotel" (1952), the film version of the Carl Zuckmayer play "Der Fröhliche Weinberg/The Grapes are ripe" (1952) and as his last movie in Kurt Gloor's magnificent "Die plötzliche Einsamkeit des Konrad Steiner/The Sudden Loneliness of Konrad Steiner" (1976) together with Sigfrit Steiner. Besides his stage and movie career, Alfred Rasser, who was a painter by training and also worked as a chicken breeder, book-keeper and cabaret performer, also served as a'high politician in the Swiss National Council (1967-1975). He passed away on August 18th 1977 after short illness in Basle.