Hugo Egon Balder

Hugo Egon Balder is a presenter, television producer, actor, musician and cabaret artist. He was born in West Berlin in 1950. He began taking piano and drum lessons as a child and teenager. He also began his career as a musician, founding the rock band Birth Control in 1967. His musical successes included the single ‘Erna kommt’ in 1984, with which he achieved chart success and also appeared on the ZDF Hitparade. From 1970-1973 he was engaged at the private drama school Ense Bongers in Berlin and until 1979 at the Schillertheater Berlin. He also later appeared as an actor in various theatre plays and films, e.g. in the 1986 TV film ‘Fluchthelfer gesucht’, several ‘Tatort’ episodes and in the 1992 cinema film ‘Die wahre Geschichte von Männern und Frauen’. In between, he was on the road with a cabaret programme called ‘Musikalischer Kitsch’. From 1985-1988, he was a member of the Düsseldorf cabaret Kom(m)ödchen together with Harald Schmidt. Balder gained his first experience as a presenter at Radio Luxembourg from 1979. In 1982, he presented the music programme ‘Disco’ and took on the role of the puppet ‘Herr Feldmann’ alongside Frank Zander in the follow-up programme ‘Vorsicht, Musik!’. He then became one of the first faces of RTL thanks to shows such as ‘Alles Nichts oder?!’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’, which he hosted from 1990-1993. From 1993, he focused more on producing TV shows: ‘RTL Samstag Nacht’, ‘April, April’ (with Frank Elstner), ‘Happiness’, ‘Freitag Nacht News’, ‘3. Halbzeit’ and in 2003 the guessing programme ‘Genial daneben’. He also acted as presenter on major television shows such as SAT 1’s “Die Hit-Giganten” from 2003, the musical casting show “Ich Tarzan du Jane”, “Flaschendrehen” and “Was für ein Jahr”. Hugo Egon Balder has received numerous prizes and awards, including: Bavarian Television Award, German Comedy Award, Bambi, German Television Award, Golden Camera and the Prix Pantheon Honour Award. Balder is married for the fifth time and has two children with his third wife. He lived in Cologne for a long time, but moved to Hamburg in 2020, where he has been a partner in the Zwick pub since 2010. His programme idea ‘Der Klügere kippt nach’ was produced there in 2015 and broadcast live on Tele 5. In 2024, Balder took part in the tenth season of ‘The Masked Singer Deutschland’ as ‘Couchpotato’.

 

Narrator in the following cities:

Berlin, Admiralspalast
Hamburg, Kampnagel
Munich, Deutsches Theater