Ulrike Folkerts (; born 14 May 1961 in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

) is a German

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

. She is most famous for playing police officer Lena Odenthal in the German crime television series ''

Tatort ''Tatort'' ("Crime scene") is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by ...

''. The episodes are located in the town of

Ludwigshafen Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...

. Folkerts, who is openly

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

, participated in the

Gay Games The Gay Games is a worldwide sport and cultural event that promotes acceptance of sexual diversity, featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes, artists and other individuals. Founded as the Gay Olympics, it was starte ...

2002 in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and won a silver and bronze medal in the swimming relay. In the single competition she was disqualified because of a false start. In July 2004 she won a bronze medal at the

EuroGames The EuroGames are an LGBT multi-sport event in Europe, licensed by the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation to a local city host each year and organised (most often) by one or more of the federation's member clubs. Similar to the Gay Gam ...

München Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. On the stage, in 2005 and 2006 she was the first woman to play Death in '' Jedermann'',

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-class ...

's version of ''

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

'', at the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amad ...

Publications

In 2005, Folkerts published her first book, an autobiography. In October 2008 she published her second book: "Glück gefunden" (Happiness found) together with her partner Katherina Schnitzler.

Awards

* 2001: Jugendhörbuchpreis * 2002: Publikums-

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. ...

– Hauptkommissarin Lena Odenthal * 2007: Verdienstkreuz am BandeBundespräsident ehrt Seyran Ates''.
In ''

Berliner Morgenpost ''Berliner Morgenpost'' is a German newspaper, based and mainly read in Berlin, where it is the second most read daily newspaper. History and profile Founded in 1898 by Leopold Ullstein, the paper was taken over by Axel Springer AG in 1959. It ...

'', 16. Juni 2007 ( dpa) * 2007: Courage-Preis for her work inter alia for ''burundikids e.V.'' and alliance Landmine.de

References

External links

*
Image of Folkerts at the Salzburg Festival 2006
1961 births Living people German stage actresses German television actresses German television personalities Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover alumni German lesbian actresses Actors from Kassel German LGBT sportspeople Lesbian sportswomen German female swimmers 20th-century German actresses 21st-century German actresses Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany LGBT swimmers Südwestrundfunk people Sportspeople from Kassel {{Germany-stage-actor-stub