Allô Allô, uma retrospectiva... (XI) - Richard Marner

Richard Marner desempenhava com imensa graça o papel do atrapalhado e um pouco pateta, Colonel Kurt von Strohm.

Curiosamente o actor chamava-se na realidade Alexander (Sacha) Molchanoff e nasceu na Rússia. Faleceu em 2004.

Da Wikipédia (em inglês):

Richard Marner

Born in Petrograd, Soviet Russia, Molchanoff was the eldest son of Colonel Paul Molchanoff, of the Semionovsky regiment, one of two that were set-up for children of children who had played with Peter the Great of Russia. In 1924, his entire family left Russia and went to Finland and then Germany, before ending up in London, where Alexander's grandmother, Olga Novikov (known in the family as "Babushka London") lived in Harley Street.

After being educated at Monmouth School in Wales, Molchanoff became an assistant to the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing, where he performed at Covent Garden. During World War II he joined the RAF, and was posted to South Africa with the Air Training Corps. After being invalided out, he changed his name to Richard Marner, and began his long successful career as a stage and film actor.

One of Marner's early stage roles - as Dracula, with Howard Dean - is still regarded by some as the definitive interpretation of the role.^[1]His films include You Only Live Twice, The Boys from Brazil, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The African Queen and the Swiss film Four in a Jeep, in which he did all the Russian dialogue. He was also in the television movie Birth of the Beatles, as the club boss, and in 'Allo 'Allo!.

Latest work included guest shots in Lovejoy (1994) and the movie The Sum of All Fears (as the Russian president).

In 1991, when the then-mayor of Moscow, Boris Yeltsin, convened a "Congress of Compatriots" (an olive branch to some of the post-1917 White Russian diaspora), Marner was one of the 600 people who returned to the motherland. Despite being caught up in a coup, he stayed long enough to watch, through tearful eyes, the first Imperial Russian flag flown in Moscow since the 1920s.

He died in Perth, Scotland and left a wife, actress Pauline Farr, who retained Molchanoff as her off-stage name. Marner was fluent in Russian, English, French and German, and was also survived by a daughter - Helen - and three grandchildren.

Colonel Kurt Von Strohm is a fictional character in the BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!, which ran from 1982 to 1992. He was played by the actor Richard Marner.

Von Strohm is a Colonel, which is similar to the rank of the Oberst in the Wehrmacht. He is the town Commandant in Nouvion, and often visits the Café René with his assistant Captain Hans Geering and his secretary Private Helga Geerhart. In the later series, after Hans goes missing, he mostly comes with Lieutenant Gruber.

The Colonel enjoys special treatment by the maid Yvette Carte-Blanche in exchange for paraffin, gasoline, sugar and butter. He also forces René Artois to hide some silver, the first cuckoo-clock ever made, and the world famous The Fallen Madonna by van Klomp (or "The Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies") from Herr Flick of the Gestapo. These valuable artifacts were found in the town's chateau. Von Strohm wants to sell them after the war to have a good pension, but he has to share with the captain, the secretary, with René Artois the café-owner and later on with Gruber. To increase his pension, he also plans to sell the well known Vase with Twelve Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh (or "The Cracked Vase With The Big Daisies"), which was found in the café. Its original owner is Madame Edith's mother Madame Fanny La Fan. She got it as a present from the nowadays popular artist.

But the Colonel fears the Gestapo and his superior General Von Klinkerhoffen, who is a ruthless man. He orders to make forgeries of the paintings, so Herr Flick can send them to Hitler as a birthday gift for Eva Braun. But the Gestapo officer also wants to get rich, so he makes more forgeries. The General is also rapacious, and wants to get his hands on the paintings too. Later Lieutenant Gruber is also involved, as he is ordered to make copies. The artifacts were hidden in various places, like in knockwursts sausages, in wardrobes, in René's cellar, in his kitchen, at the old sawmill, etc.

But the paintings were never sold. In the last episode Gruber finds The Fallen Madonna by mistake in the statue of René. By this time the Madonna has only one big boobie. But Helga possesses the other one, so the painting is complete again. In this episode we also find out that many years after the war Gruber married Helga and hired Von Strohm as his chaffeur.