Gied Jaspars (6 July 1939 – 14 February 1996) was a Dutch television maker who gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s making progressive and controversial TV shows for the

VPRO The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for ''Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep'', lit. 'Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcaster', nowadays known as ''Omroepvereniging VPRO'') is a Netherlands, Dutch Public broadcasting, public broadca ...

; he is well known for his collaboration with writer and director

Wim T. Schippers Willem Theodoor "Wim T." Schippers (; born 1 July 1942) is a Dutch artist, comedian, television director, and voice actor. During the 1960s, he worked mostly as a visual artist, associated with the international Fluxus-movement. As a television ...

. After he left the television and film industry he started a career as a business man; throughout his career he had a great interest in nature, expressed in narrative, meditative reflections in television and radio series which were later bundled as a single collection.

Biography

Television

Jaspars was born in

Gronsveld Gronsveld () is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is part of the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten and situated southeast of the municipality of Maastricht, to which it is bordering. Gronsveld was a separate municipality until 1982 ...

, and studied at the Filmacademie in Amsterdam. In 1963 he was the founder, with

Nikolai van der Heyde Nikolai van der Heyde (23 January 1936 – 6 August 2020) was a Dutch film director and screenwriter.Pim de la Parra, of the movie magazine '' Skoop''. His career as a television producer took off in 1967 when he was part of the team (with

) that made the groundbreaking show ''

Hoepla ''Hoepla'' ("Whoops") was a Dutch experimental cultural television show broadcast in 1967. It aimed at a young teenage audience and was notable for being unpredictable and risky in its subject matter, featuring reports, performances, declarations ...

'' for the

, possibly the most controversial TV program of the 1960s and the first program to have a completely naked woman (

Phil Bloom Phil Bloom (born 27 November 1945 in Berkel en Rodenrijs) is a Dutch artist, graphic designer and performer. She was the first person to appear completely nude on Dutch television broadcaster VPRO, on 28 July 1967 during the show '' Hoepla'', whi ...

) on television, even leading to questions being asked in parliament. Jaspars went on to collaborate with Schippers (who referred to Jaspars as his "soundboard"),

Wim van der Linden Wim van der Linden (1 January 1941, Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 ...

, and

Ruud van Hemert Ruud van Hemert (29 October 1938 – 5 July 2012) was a Dutch film director known especially for (dark) comedy. In the 1970s he helped produce and direct TV shows on VPRO before starting a career as a film director. Biography Ruud van Heme ...

on other shows, including '' De Fred Hachéshow'' (1972), '' Barend is weer bezig'' (1972–1973), and ''

Het is weer zo laat! ''Het is weer zo laat!'' ("It's that time again!"), also known as ''Waldolala'', is a Dutch television show from 1978, written and directed by Wim T. Schippers and co-produced by Schippers, Gied Jaspars, Wim van der Linden en Ellen Jens. It was ...

'' (1978), and he produced the Schippers play ''

Going to the Dogs ''Going to the Dogs'' is a 1986 play by Dutch writer, artist, and television director Wim T. Schippers. It premiered on 19 September to a sell-out audience in the Stadsschouwburg (Amsterdam), Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam, with six German Shepherds, ...

'' (1986). He also produced popular programs such as the ''BB-kwis'' (with Berend Boudewijn), ''Sonja's goed nieuwsshow'' (with Sonja Barend), and ''Waar gebeurd'' (in which people were allowed to tell the craziest stores, made with

Paul Haenen Paul Haenen ɔɫ 'haːnə(n)(born 30 April 1946) is a Dutch comedian and voice actor. Career Paul Haenen is a well-known comedian in the Netherlands and also provides the voices of Bert, Grover and other minor characters on ''Sesamstraat'', ...

). For VPRO radio he directed, in 1981, a show dedicated to a "shameful night of love", in which radio hosts talked to listeners about their love lives; in between, Jaspars read passages from

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

's ''

The Sorrows of Young Werther ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; ), or simply ''Werther'', is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the ''Sturm und Drang'' ...

''. In 1981-1982 he produced and narrated a series of segments that closed the day's shows, in collaboration with the nature preservation society

Natuurmonumenten Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland (), also known as Vereniging Natuurmonumenten, is a Dutch nature conservation organization founded in 1905 by Jacobus Pieter Thijsse and Eli Heimans, that buys, protects, and manages nature ...

. In 1984 he produced '' Een dagje naar het strand'', directed by Theo van Gogh.

Inventions

After his television career he was active as a business man selling inventions, developing a storage system (with Samuel Meyering), the Rolykit, which made him almost a millionaire. Working with a collective of inventors they had made a revolutionary

caster A caster (or castor) is an undriven wheel that is designed to be attached to the bottom of a larger object (the "vehicle") to enable that object to be moved. Casters are used in numerous applications, including shopping carts, office chairs, t ...

, but he was unable to bring it to market since he didn't succeed in getting it patented.

Nature and radio

As he got older, he became more and more interested in making nature his profession. A lifelong lover of nature and an avid walker, at age 50 he turned himself into a storyteller, making radio shows for the VPRO about his fascination with nature and his youth in Limburg; he is praised for his narrative talent and poetic style, displayed also in the 1992-1993 eight-part series ''Ontmoetingen in de natuur'' in which Jaspars recounted episodes from his childhood, followed by an eight-part series in 1994, ''Gied Jaspars vertelt''. At around the same time

Frans Bromet Frans is an Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish given name, sometimes as a short form of ''François'' or ''Franciscus''. One cognate of Frans in English is ''Francis''. Given name * Frans van Aarssens (1572–16 ...

(a friend with whom he had studied at the Filmacademie) worked on a television series on Jaspars, ''Het leven van Gied Jaspars'', as an homage; Jaspars, diagnosed with bowel cancer, and spent two years undergoing surgery and chemotherapy (which he discussed in ''Vinger aan de pols'', a medical television show), but had learned recently that the end was near. He spoke at length on his passion for the outdoors and his love of Dutch landscape in an interview with Frank Flippo in the walkers magazine ''Te Voet'' six months before he died. The collection ''Mijmeringen'' anthologizes some of his best radio narrations done for the VPRO and the VARA. Jaspars died of bowel cancer, at age 56.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jaspars, Gied 1939 births 1996 deaths People from Eijsden-Margraten Deaths from colorectal cancer Dutch television producers