Well-known radio play speaker
He spoke to Benjamin Blümchen and Morgan Freeman: Jürgen Kluckert is dead
Jürgen Kluckert 2019 with his alter ego Benjamin Blümchen. He has voiced the elephant in more than 70 episodes since 1994.
© Dave Bedrosian/Geisler-Fotopress/ / Picture Alliance
Generations of children have grown up with his voice: Benjamin Blümchen spokesman Jürgen Kluckert died at the age of 79. He also dubbed famous Hollywood stars.
Anyone born in the past 30 years should not have been able to ignore their voice: since 1994 Jürgen Kluckert has lent his voice to the elephant Benjamin Blümchen, known from children’s radio plays. In a total of more than 70 episodes, he set the adventures of the good-natured pachyderm to music and gave him a characteristic personality with his deep, warm voice.
Initially, several colleagues reported on the Twitter platform, which was recently renamed X, and the German Press Agency has now also confirmed the speaker’s death. Kluckert was born in 1943 in what was then the province of Pomerania and grew up in the GDR, where he studied at the Ernst Busch State Drama School in East Berlin.
Jürgen Kluckert: Benjamin Blümchen made him famous
First he dubbed films for the East German film company DEFA. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he continued his career as a successful voice actor in reunified Germany and was, among other things, the German voice of Hollywood stars such as Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover and Chuck Norris. He also wrote the music for Donald Sutherland, James Brolin and Robbie Coltrane in his two James Bond films.
In 1994 he got the role for which he is known to this day: he took over the elephant of the same name from the “Benjamin Blümchen” radio play series, which is popular with countless children, from his colleague Edgar Ott. It was just one of many engagements as a speaker. He was also Earl Sinclair on the Disney series Dinosaurs, voiced Mr. Krabs on the television series SpongeBob SquarePants, and has also appeared in the radio drama series Gabriel Burns and Dragonbound. Even fans of computer games might know his voice: he voiced Gangplank from “League of Legends”.
Kluckert’s sons Tobias (including Bradley Cooper, Seth Rogen, Gerard Butler and Joaquin Phoenix), Fabian and Sebastian have followed in their father’s professional footsteps and also become voice actors. Most recently, the 79-year-old lived near Potsdam. He has now passed away at the age of 79. But his voice will continue to be heard in hundreds of thousands of children’s rooms.