Thomas Gottschalk

Thomas Gottschalk came out of German radio and spent the better part of four decades as the biggest television host in the German-speaking world. Born in Bamberg in 1950, he made his name on Wetten, dass..?, the Saturday night show in which members of the public bet they can do something improbable in front of a studio audience, and which he steered between 1987 and 2023 into what was for years the largest television programme in Europe, watched across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrol.

His skill is a specific one, and it does not transfer to scripted work: he is a live host who is genuinely comfortable when a segment falls apart. Everything that made the show enormous, the length, the unpredictability, the famous guests stranded on a sofa waiting their turn, depends on somebody who can talk his way out of dead air without appearing to work at it.

The film credits are a footnote and he appears to know it. He is Father Wolfgang in Sister Act 2, Jurgen in Zookeeper, a supporting face in a couple of American comedies at the turn of the nineties. Until 2015 he was also the man fronting Haribo's advertising, which tells you as much about his standing in German culture as any of the broadcasting does.