Jens Gunderssen (19 May 1912 – 11 December 1969) was a Norwegian singer,

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), l ...

, stage producer and

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

Early and personal life

Gunderssen was born in

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Viken, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such as Konner ...

, as son of Karl Gunderssen and Ågot Uhl. His father was a prominent local politician, and mayor in Drammen from 1937 to 1950. He married the actress Gunvor Hall in 1942.

Career

Gunderssen studied law, and finished his

cand.jur. Candidate of Law (Latin: ''candidatus/candidata juris/iuris'') is both a graduate law degree awarded to law students in the Nordic region as well as an academic status designation for advanced Law School students in German-speaking countries. No ...

degree in 1937 at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...

. While being a student he played amateur theatre. The leader of

Det Nye Teater Det Nye Teater was a theatre that opened in Oslo in 1929, and ended as an independent theatre in 1959, when it merged with Folketeatret to form Oslo Nye Teater. The theatre's original purpose was to support contemporary Norwegian drama. History ...

saw him playing, and offered him a role. Gunderssen made his professional stage debut in April 1939 at Det Nye Teater, where he worked until 1950. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he took part in organizational work. He was chairman of the

Norwegian Actors' Equity Association The Norwegian Actors' Equity Association ( no, Norsk Skuespillerforbund) is an association of Norwegian actors. Its main purpose is to improve actors' working conditions and to protect the artistic, judicial and financial interests of actors in N ...

from 1946 to 1950. He was chairman for ''Norsk Skuespillerråd'' from 1947 to 1949, and board member of ''Nordisk Teaterutvalg'' from 1947 to 1950. He was a member of ''Statens Filmråd'' from 1951. He was employed by the

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and the larges ...

as leader for

Radioteatret Radioteatret is a department of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation which produces audio plays for radio broadcasting. It was established in 1927. In January 2021, ''Verdens Gang'' cited a report from NTB, saying that Radioteatret ow isbeing ...

from 1950 to 1952. He worked at actor at Folketeatret from 1952, and as leader from 1955 to 1959. Here he got acclaim for his production of Dylan Thomas' play ''

Under Milk Wood ''Under Milk Wood'' is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, commissioned by the BBC and later adapted for the stage. A film version, '' Under Milk Wood'' directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released in 1972, and another adaptatio ...

''. He worked for

Oslo Nye Teater Oslo Nye Teater is a theater located in Oslo, Norway. The theater has its main stage in its own theater house at Rosenkrantz' gate 10. It is one of Norway's most visited theatres. Oslo Nye Teater AS is wholly owned by Oslo Municipality. His ...

from 1959 to 1969. He also played minor roles in the films ''Gullfjellet'' (1941), ''Den forsvundne pølsemaker'' (1941), ''Jeg drepte --!'' (1944) and ''Hans Nielsen Hauge'' (1961). Gunderssen was co-founder of ''Visens Venner'' in 1944. He wrote several songs, and issued the song books ''Små viser om små ting'' (1943), ''Hu Maja'' (1945), ''Ballade! Jens Gunderssens visebok'' (1949) and ''På trammen'' (1962).

External links

References

1912 births 1969 deaths Musicians from Drammen Norwegian male stage actors Norwegian theatre directors Norwegian songwriters NRK people Norwegian theatre managers and producers Norwegian male film actors 20th-century Norwegian male actors 20th-century Norwegian male singers University of Oslo alumni {{Theat-bio-stub