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Münchner Freiheit: Amazon Prime shows the dazzling history of the chic crowd

2022-08-18T16:24:22.943Z


Münchner Freiheit: Amazon Prime shows the dazzling history of the chic crowd Created: 08/18/2022, 18:07 By: Katja Kraft That's how liberal things were in the English Garden in the 1970s. And not only there - even in nightclubs, people often stripped naked. A rebellion against the stuffy, stale post-war period. © Gebhardt Munich's chic crowd: you think of Helmut Dietl's cult series "Kir Royal"


Münchner Freiheit: Amazon Prime shows the dazzling history of the chic crowd

Created: 08/18/2022, 18:07

By: Katja Kraft

That's how liberal things were in the English Garden in the 1970s.

And not only there - even in nightclubs, people often stripped naked.

A rebellion against the stuffy, stale post-war period.

© Gebhardt

Munich's chic crowd: you think of Helmut Dietl's cult series "Kir Royal" from 1986. In fact, this dazzling Munich epoch began earlier.

From the 1960s it got wicked in Munich.

From August 19, 2022, Amazon Prime Video will show the documentary series “Schickeria.

When Munich was still sexy". 

Did Rod Stewart really have sex under the restaurant table?

Kay Wörsching wouldn't swear to it.

“I was at the table then, we were a large group.

Rod Stewart and his company then went into hiding for a while - but what exactly happened down there?

Nobody pulled up the ceiling,” says Wörsching with a smile.

The gastronomy legend knows about this pretty indecent story that people in Munich tell about the British singer.

Maybe nobody would ever have found out about it if gossip reporter Michael Graeter hadn't been sitting in Wörsching's Kay's Bistro that evening sometime in the 1970s.

"Michael loved such sex scandals and was happy to exploit them in his articles." And thus contributed to the creation of legends at a time when

to which, as a later-born, you would like to be beamed back immediately.

How colorful things were back then, how full of life, how uninhibited!

Gastronomy legend: Kay Wörsching.

For 30 years he ran the legendary Kay's Bistro in Munich, where world stars from Leonard Bernstein to Mick Jagger frequented.

Today he runs the Café Marimba.

© Jantz

At least that's how it seems when you look at the documentary "Schickeria", which is available from today on Amazon Prime Video.

Subtitle: "When Munich was still sexy".

In four 45-minute episodes, the production illuminates the Munich chic scene from the 1960s to the late 1980s.

Because this term "Schickeria" was not first coined by Helmut Dietl with his legendary series "Kir Royal".

When it came out in 1986, the best days of Munich society were already over.

What began in the 1960s as a scene of artists, hippies, actors and hedonists who savored life and fought for their individual freedom ultimately remained a kiss-kiss society, which also likes to be smartly dressed and fed was - but otherwise had little in common with the beginnings.

Munich love: Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) lived in Munich from 1979 to 1985.

He let it rip with his bosom friend Barbara Valentin (1940-2002).

© dpa Picture Alliance / Ursula Düren

“Looking back, you have to say: the seventies and eighties were the best times.

Well, of course I was younger back then, so you find everything nicer,” says Kay Wörsching.

And yet: "It was actually more relaxed, more carefree." And he was right in the middle.

In 1976, at the age of 28, he opened his bistro.

It should become the store with the highest density of celebrities in Germany.

“Prominent, that comes from prominens – excellent.

Who still stands out today?

Most so-called influencers are only known for putting themselves in the right photo light.

The people who achieve outstanding things today, who are real world stars, no longer dare to just walk into the restaurant without a bodyguard.” Because they always have to fear for people who take pictures of them with their smartphones.

But back then: the great freedom.

And the sweet smell afterwards they all followed.

Mick Jagger, Alain Delon, Gianni Versace.

Not only did they love Munich, they loved Kay's Bistro.

Leonard Bernstein was a regular guest and even invited the restaurateur to New York.

Wörsching accepted the invitation.

When he recounts the private feast at Bernstein's, with Lauren Bacall opening the door and Teresa Stratas mixing the cocktails, it's a glorious story in itself.

Protest: Away with the brassieres!

In 1972, women – and men – demonstrated in front of the Blow Up club for more freedom in every respect.

© Gebhardt

The celebrities, the real celebrities, so they all came to him.

Why?

"At the time, I had an acquaintance who always claimed that he knew Gina Lollobrigida.

Of course I didn't believe it.

A week after I opened, he calls me and says: 'Tonight I'm coming with Gina.'

I still didn't believe it," says Wörsching.

But then she stood there, Gina Lollobrigida.

In the sable.

Wörsching's acquaintance next to him, in a monkey fur coat.

Even today unthinkable.

And by coincidence, Gilbert Bécaud, who had previously given a concert in Munich, also stopped by the same evening.

The acting beauty and the 100,000 volt man see each other, greet each other with open arms, the people at the tables drop their cutlery in amazement.

The next day a newspaper carried a photo of Gina and Gilbert and headlined:

"Kay's Bistro - Munich's new celebrity address".

It is the beginning of a 30-year success story.

Cult: Mario Adorf as general manager Haffenloher in "Kir Royal", Helmut Dietl's pastiche of the fashionable.

© Allstar

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The development of Munich is reflected in the guests and the parties that were celebrated there – seven days a week, eleven months a year.

It's the old story: At first the creative people come, then the moneyed people want to play along too.

For a short time this overlaps, there is a seething mix of all layers, interests, characters.

Until the money takes over and crowds out the others.

Where did it go - the Munich freedom?

In addition to gentrification, Kay Wörsching sees other reasons for the slow slipping of the socialite into a superficial see-and-be-seen crowd: “A crucial point was when the AIDS wave broke out.

Some of the joie de vivre has gone.

That was like a slap in the head.” And when Berlin became the federal capital, a lot of interesting people migrated to Berlin.

“Exciting people that Munich missed.

These are cuts that have dampened the famous easy Munich attitude to life.” When you see the Amazon Prime video documentary “Schickeria”, you get a little jealous.

And asks himself: How do we find our way back to the great Munich freedom?

Source: merkur

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