1 9 8 5 – 1 9 8 9 (West Germany/Austria)
70 x 45 minute episodes
Britain’s Channel Four brought this long-running West German TV soap opera to television screens across the UK (dubbed into English) in 1988 in the hope that it would become more popular than Dallas.
In its home country, more than 60% of the country’s population (some 25 million viewers) regularly tuned in to watch the story of a private hospital run by the Brinkmann family of doctors.
The mainstays of the series were the clinic’s newly-appointed head, widowed Professor Klaus Brinkmann (Klausjürgen Wussow), his son, Dr Udo Brinkmann (Sascha Hehn), whose interest in biology was not always strictly professional, and Christa Brinkmann (Gaby Dohm), who was destined to be a doctor too, but ended up as merely a nurse when the family funds ran out.
Both Professor Brinkmann and his doctor son had romantic designs on Christa, but it was the Prof who eventually married her.
The men were all hunks with vorsprung durch technik jawbones, and the women were either matronly or modelish, but the acting was so wooden you could plane it down and use it to make some shelves.
The series – produced at the famous Hamburg Studios and on location at the real-life Glotterbad Clinic in the town of Glottertal in the Black Forest – aired around the world (often as The Black Forest Hospital) and was translated into 37 languages.
Professor Klaus Brinkmann
Klausjürgen Wussow Christa Brinkmann
Gaby Dohm Dr Udo Brinkmann
Sascha Hehn Benjamin Brinkmann
Andreas Winterhalder Schwester Elke
Barbara Wussow Pfleger Mischa
Jochen Schroeder Hildegard Zeisig
Eva Maria Bauer Carsta Michaelis
Evelyn Hamann Herr Mühlmann
Alf Marholm Frau Meis
Karin Eckhold Schwester Ina
Gabi Fischer Dr Römer
Horst Naumann Dr Vollmers
Christian Kohlund Dr Engel
Michael Kausch Angie Gessner-Brinkmann
Angelika Reißner Carola
Olivia Pascal Dr Katarina Gessner
Ilona Grübel Frederic Gessner
David Cameron Käti
Karin Hardt Dr Werner Schübel
Volker Brandt Dr Wolter
Franz Rudnick Dr Laudann
Herbert Tennigkeit Wolfgang Pohl
Wolfgang Wahl Dr Karin Plessers
Verena Peter Dr Borsdorf
Knut Hinz Claudia Schubert
Anja Kruse Dr Schäfer
Karl Walter Diess Theres Rotenburg
Beatrice Kessler Dr Rens
Holger Petzold Dr Elena Bach
Heidelinde Weis Florian Brinkmann
Raimund Harmstorf
In its home country, more than 60% of the country’s population (some 25 million viewers) regularly tuned in to watch the story of a private hospital run by the Brinkmann family of doctors.
The men were all hunks with vorsprung durch technik jawbones, and the women were either matronly or modelish, but the acting was so wooden you could plane it down and use it to make some shelves.
