Antoon (Tom) Manders was a Dutch artist,

comedian A comedian (feminine comedienne) or comic is a person who seeks to entertainment, entertain an audience by making them laughter, laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick), or employing prop c ...

and cabaret performer. In later role, he became better known as Dorus.

Biography

Although his birth was officially recorded as having occurred on 24 October, he was actually born on the 23rd. His father had him registered one day later because, for a child born on Sunday, he would not get a day off work. Already at a young age, his talent for

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

became apparent. He attended the Royal Academy of Art in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

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for 3 years and was active, among other things, as an advertisement painter and designer of posters. Later he also designed decors for theatre and cabaret, regularly for Lou Bandy,

Wim Kan Willem Cornelis "Wim" Kan (15 January 1911 – 8 September 1983) was a Dutch cabaret artist. Together with Toon Hermans and Wim Sonneveld, he is considered to be one of the Great Three of Dutch cabaret. In 1936, he established the ABC Cab ...

and theatre Carré in

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. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Manders had to work in

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but after half a year, he fled from his job as a painter. Because of Wim Kan, Manders got the idea to start doing cabaret himself, like his older brother Kees. Starting in 1953, Manders was involved with the design of Carel Kamlag's cafe at the Rembrandtplein in Amsterdam. Manders performed there himself as a

vagabond Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, waste picker, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western ...

, a role that would later become famous as ''Dorus''. When VARA offered him an opportunity to perform on television, he had the cafe copied in the studio and started a successful show that would be broadcast for several years. Between 1956 and 1962, Manders worked together with

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

Cor Steyn for the program De Showboat. Together they created tracks like ''Twee motten'' (two moths), ''Als ik wist dat je zou komen'' (had I known you would come by) en ''Bij de marine'' (in the navy). Manders got into financial trouble when he tried to produce Dorus movies. In 1967, he won the Zilveren Roos prize and started a new program, ''Bij Dorus op schoot'' (on Dorus' lap). In a particularly famous scene from 18 November, a young girl tries to sing the famous Dutch children song Poessie Mauw, of which she endlessly repeated only the title. Also in 1967, the former chemical products business on the Mauritsstraat 65 in Rotterdam was converted to Cabaret Dorus. This only lasted until 1970 and with the closing of Cabaret Dorus, the show Bij Dorus op schoot also ended. Since 1985, there is a block of houses in the same location named the Tom Mandershof. In 1971, Dorus made one more television appearance, in which he scared visitors of

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by pretending to be a wax statue. In the same year, he had another musical hit with ''In de hemel is geen bier'' (there is no beer in heaven). In February 1972, Manders had a car accident. In the hospital, he was diagnosed with

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

. Three weeks later he died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

Musical

In 2009/2010 Albert Verlinde produced a musical about the life of Tom Manders with the title ''Dorus, the musical''. and , better known as , played the main roles. The show was written by Lars Boom and Dick van den Heuvel and directed by Peter de Baan.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manders, Tom 1921 births 1972 deaths Entertainers from The Hague Dutch male comedians Dutch cabaret performers Dutch cabaret singers Dutch comedy musicians Dutch folk singers Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni 20th-century Dutch comedians Comedians from The Hague