Monika Baumgartner
An original Munich native, Monika Baumgartner was 18 when she enrolled in the renowned Otto-Falkenberg school of acting. Immediately after her graduation in 1972, Jürgen Flimm recruited her for the National Theatre of Mannheim, where she worked until 1977. Her homesickness was exacerbated for another year at the Thalia Theatre Hamburg, after which she finally got to return to Munich, where she landed her first television role. Other television movies followed and in 1981 she got the lead in “Rumpelhanni”, her breakthrough.
After doing a string of other television productions, Monika Baumgartner returned to the stage in 1983, where she worked at the Munich Chamber Theatre for two years and met famous German actor, playwright and director Franz Xaver Kroetz. Her role as the daughter in the world premiere of his “Bauern sterben” (“Farmers die”) earned her an award as best theatre actress of the year, a prize given out by a popular German newspaper. Following this success, she guest-starred in yet another play by Kroetz, at the famous Bavaria State Theatre.
Monika Baumgartner has done several German movies as well as acted and guest-starred in a myriad of German and Bavarian television series, her specialty. Her performance in a 1996 television movie earned her the important Bavarian Television Award. Since 1998, Baumgartner has also worked as a director, noticeably also at “her” old National Theatre of Mannheim and at the famed Munich Chamber Theatre. She has, nevertheless, never stopped acting, both in television and on stage. Her specialty of acting with the Bavarian accent has given her the opportunity to star in many Bavarian productions, which is what she is most famous for in Germany. When she is not busy acting, she enjoys tending to her garden and savouring life with her partner, or helping her sister with their common interior design shop.
After doing a string of other television productions, Monika Baumgartner returned to the stage in 1983, where she worked at the Munich Chamber Theatre for two years and met famous German actor, playwright and director Franz Xaver Kroetz. Her role as the daughter in the world premiere of his “Bauern sterben” (“Farmers die”) earned her an award as best theatre actress of the year, a prize given out by a popular German newspaper. Following this success, she guest-starred in yet another play by Kroetz, at the famous Bavaria State Theatre.
Monika Baumgartner has done several German movies as well as acted and guest-starred in a myriad of German and Bavarian television series, her specialty. Her performance in a 1996 television movie earned her the important Bavarian Television Award. Since 1998, Baumgartner has also worked as a director, noticeably also at “her” old National Theatre of Mannheim and at the famed Munich Chamber Theatre. She has, nevertheless, never stopped acting, both in television and on stage. Her specialty of acting with the Bavarian accent has given her the opportunity to star in many Bavarian productions, which is what she is most famous for in Germany. When she is not busy acting, she enjoys tending to her garden and savouring life with her partner, or helping her sister with their common interior design shop.
Monika Baumgartner Reads Ludwig Thoma