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Anke Engelke, born December 21, 1965 in Montreal, Canada, presented TV programmes on Radio Luxemburg and ZDF since she was a child. From 1986 to 1998 she was editor and presenter for SWF and from 1996 to 2000 she was part of the Comedy-ensemble of "Wochenshow" on Sat.1, followed by her own shows "Anke", "Ladykracher" and "Anke Late Night". For an episode of the improvisation "Blind Date" Engelke alongside with her partner Olli Dittrich received Grimme Preis in 2003.
After a small part in "Tatort – Tod im All" (1997) Engelke played in Detlev Buck's "Liebesluder" ("A Bundle of Joy", 2000), followed by further film parts where she could play out her special comic talent, as in "Der Schuh des Manitu" ("Manitou's Shoe", 2001) by Michael "Bully" Herbig or in Tobi Baumann's "Der Wixxer" (2004). Also as a dubbing artist she succeeded, for example as Doris in the german version of "Finding Nemo" (2003) or as lizard Iguanita in "Der kleine Eisbär 2 – Die geheimnisvolle Insel" ("The Little Polar Bear 2: The mysterious Island", 2001). In January 2007, Anke Engelke became the voice of "Marge Simpson" in the cult series "The Simpsons" after Elisabeth Volkmann, the former dubbing voice, had died in late 2006.
In 2006, Anke Engelke started her new comedy show "Ladyland", a sequel to her comedy show "Ladykracher". Since September 2007, Engelke also participated in the pre-school TV series "Die Sendung mit dem Elefanten". Engelke's numerous TV appearances include the TV series "Kommissarin Lucas" that features Engelke as the younger sister of the female inspector, played by Ulrike Kriener.
Engelke went on to play supporting roles in Helmut Dietl's "Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe" ("About the Looking for and the Finding of Love", 2005) and the comedy "Vollidiot" ("Complete Idiot", 2007). She also portrayed the mother of one of the girl protagonists in the high school comedy "Freche Mädchen" ("Cheeky Girls", 2008) and its sequel "Freche Mädchen 2" ("Cheeky Girls 2", 2010).
In 2010, Anke Engelke won awards for both her acclaimed show "Ladykracher" and the TV special "Fröhliche Weihnachten! – mit Wolfgang & Anneliese". The following year, she garnered German Television Awards for "Ladykracher" and her work as presenter of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Returning to the big screen, she had cameos in the children's films "Rico, Oskar und die Tieferschatten" ("The Pasta Detectives", 2014) and "Doktor Proktors Pupspulver" ("Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder", 2014), and also played a major role in the comedy "Frau Müller muss weg" ("Ms. Mueller Must Go", 2014). Her performance won her the Ernst-Lubitsch-Preis.
With "Gespensterjäger – Auf eisiger Spur" ("Ghosthunters – On Icy Trails", 2015), Engelke again appeared in a children's film: She plays a ghost hunter, who eventually befriends an amiable spirit. She remained within the genre with her cameo as a peculiar receptionist in "Doktor Proktors Zeitbadewanne" (NO/DE 2016). After parts in a string of TV movies, including Sherry Hormann's thriller "Tödliche Geheimnisse" (2016), Engelke starred in André Erkau's comedy "Happy Burnout" (2017) as a conservative nurse in a clinic for burnout syndrome, whose strict regime is put into question by a new patient, an aged punk rocker.
Further appearances on the big screen followed, as a mayfly in the children's film "Nur ein Tag" (2017), in the multiple award-winning drama "Das schönste Mädchen der Welt" ("The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", 2018) as the mother of one of the main characters, as well as in a small supporting role in the dating app comedy "Rate Your Date", which was released in spring 2019. Earlier, in 2018, she appeared as a GDR accountant in seven episodes of the ten-part spy series "Deutschland '86" produced for Amazon Prime. She reprised this role for eight more episodes in the sequel series "Deutschland '89", which was released on Amazon in 2020.
She played the lead role of a suddenly widowed woman who discovers her calling as a professional funeral orator in the Netflix dramedy series "Das letzte Wort" ("The Last Word") in 2020. In the spring of 2021, she was one of the participants in the Amazon-produced comedy game show "LOL: Last One Laughing Germany", in which well-known comedians are locked up together for six hours and have to try to make each other laugh but keep a straight face themselves.
Of a serious nature was her starring role in Lena Stahl's acclaimed feature film debut "Mein Sohn" ("My Son"), as an (overly) concerned mother who finds it even harder to refrain from interfering in the life of her risk-loving son (Jonas Dassler) after his serious accident. The drama, which won the Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino in the Best Production category at the Munich Film Festival, was released in winter 2021.
Carolin Schmitz's film "Mutter", for which filming began in November 2020, also dealt with the challenges and ambivalent experiences of being a mother. In the film documentary statements by various women are brought together in a fictional character portrayed by Engelke.