Ilja Richter

Ilja Richter (born 24 November 1952 in East Berlin) is a German actor, voice actor, television presenter, singer, theatre director and author. Life Ilja Richter was born to parents Georg and Eva Richter. Georg was a Communist, who named Ilja after the Russian journalist Ilya Ehrenburg, and Eva was a Jew who survived the Third Reich under a fake Aryan identity. Georg spent nine and a half years in concentration camps during the Third Reich. After the family was in political difficulties in East Germany, they moved to West Berlin in 1953. There, the Richters leased a restaurant. In 1955, Ilja's sister Janina was born, and in 1959 they moved to Cologne. There, too, the Richters ran a restaurant, but moved back in 1960 to West Berlin, where they opened a guesthouse. Eva, a former actress, brought Ilja to the Sender Freies Berlin (Radio Free Berlin) for an audition. Ilja's acting career began at the age of nine. As a teenager he starred in the series Till, the Boy Next Door as Albert. In the 1970s, Richter became famous in West-Germany as television presenter of Disco, a music show filmed before a young live audience in which he also performed in sketches.