Maria Peschek was born in 1953 in the small town of Weng near Landshut with 1,500 inhabitants. But she grew up in Munich. She learned to be a teacher, but that was more for adults because the reputation of the stage was stronger. She graduated from the Otto Falckenberg Drama School, theater engagements and small TV roles soon followed. However, a role that she formed at drama school and, inspired by Sigi Zimmerschied, that she tried out in 1985 at the Passau executioner’s hatchet competition was to become decisive: that of Paula Pirschl, a coarse, narrow-minded and malicious Lower Bavarian person with a kitchen apron and a need to communicate, a classic ” Ratschkathl” so.
Award-winning actress and a dedicated mother
She jumped into second place and realized, “People like me.” The following year, the first full-evening program followed, and she was also part of the premiere of the BR “Radiospitzen” – in order to become an institution there. Together with Gabi Lodermeier, Maria Peschek deserves the rank of pioneer, who complemented the type cabaret with the female facet. Paula Pirschl became her second self in countless other programs, on which she worked diligently.
“What was that now?”, with which she celebrated her 30th stage anniversary in 2016, was her 24th program. The Pirschl was so dominant that other characters, such as the child psychologist Freifrau von Zitzewitz-Brushenbinder or the singer Helen Winter, and even her roles in TV series such as “Der Bulle von Tölz” or “Franzi” were often overlooked. And with it, what a diverse actress, Peschek, who was honored with the Ernst Hoferichter Prize and the cabaret prize of the city of Munich, was among others.
In any case, the socially committed mother of two did not see herself as a solo fighter. She liked to perform with others, for example with Susanne Weinhöppel, the corrugations, the journalist Michael Skasa or her husband Helmut Dauner. She was also closely connected to the Tams-Theater, for which she wrote numerous plays and often acted, together with its director Annette Spola since 2003 regularly as the Bavarian clown duo “Beppi und Charli” – for which she received the Schwabing Art Prize in 2020. Maria Peschek died completely surprisingly on Friday night at the age of 69.