Dimitri Frenkel Frank

Biography

Dimitri Frenkel Frank was a Dutch stage actor, theatre critic, film director and author of plays, screenplays and novels.

He was born Dimitrij Georg Frenkel in Munich and moved to Rotterdam when he was 8 years old. He wrote scripts for radio plays and was the theatre reporter for the newpaper De Telegraaf. Starting in 1952, he also worked as an advertising copywriter. He published his first novel in 1956, and in 1960 his first play was published. In the 1960s he became well known for his work with the satirical VARA television programmes Zo is het toevallig ook nog eens een keer (1963) and Hadimassa (1967-1972). He wrote screenplays for Frans Weisz (Heb medelij, Jet!) and Charles Huguenot van der Linden. At the end of the 1970s he made a number of films for television and in the 1980s he made the features Hoge hakken, echte liefde and De boezemvriend. In the feature film De ijssalon, about a Jewish man who owns an ice-cream parlour during the German occupation, he was able to incorporate the war experiences of his own father.