Timm Franz Maria Elstner (born 19 April 1942), known as Frank Elstner, is a German television presenter.

Early life

Elstner went to school in

Rastatt Rastatt () is a town with a Baroque core, District of Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain on the Murg river, above its junction with the Rhine and has a population of around 50,000 (2011). Rastatt was a ...

in Germany and gained his first experience in broadcasting as a child when he acted in

radio play Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...

s for the station then known as Südwestfunk, now as

Südwestrundfunk Südwestrundfunk (SWR; ''Southwest Broadcasting'') is a regional public broadcasting corporation serving the southwest of Germany , specifically the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The corporation has main offices ...

, which served the Rhineland Palatinate and southern

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

Career

Elstner first became famous as a presenter (and later as the programme director) for the German radio broadcasting programme on

Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...

(until 1983). He started out in television with shows such as ''Spiel ohne Grenzen'' ("Game with No Limits"; the same as ''

It's a Knockout ''It's a Knockout!'' is a British game show first broadcast in 1966. It was adapted from the French show '' Intervilles'', and was part of the international '' Jeux sans frontières'' franchise. History The series was broadcast on BBC1 from 7 ...

'') and ''Die Montagsmaler'' ("The Monday Sketchers"; a game similar to ''

Pictionary ''Pictionary'' (, ) is a charades-inspired word-guessing game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985 by Angel Games Inc. Angel Games licensed Pictionary to Western Publishing. Hasbro purchase ...

''). In 1981, he invented the show '' Wetten, dass..?'' ("Wanna bet..?") which became extremely popular and was, for some time, one of the most successful shows in Europe. That year, Elstner was presented with a

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 ...

, the German television and media prize. In Britain the show was copied as ''

You Bet! ''You Bet!'' is a British game show that aired on ITV between 20 February 1988 and 12 April 1997, initially hosted by Bruce Forsyth from 1988 to 1990, then by Matthew Kelly from 1991 to 1995 and finally by Darren Day from 1996 to 1997. Forma ...

'' and ran from 1988 to 1997. Elstner presented the German show himself until 1987, appearing 39 times altogether, before handing it over to

Thomas Gottschalk Thomas Johannes Gottschalk (born 18 May 1950) is a German radio and television host and entertainer. He is best known for hosting '' Wetten, dass..?'', for many years Europe's biggest television show, which he steered to huge success in Germany, ...

. Elstner worked for

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

television company for many years but moved to RTL when viewing figures dropped. There, he presented the German version of the quiz show ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given gene ...

''. He also has his own company, Elstnertainment, which develops new ideas for TV shows and sells them to both public service and private television companies. FFO Frank Elstner ABER HALLO Interview 1993-10-05

FFO Frank Elstner ABER HALLO Interview 1993-10-05

Today, Elstner mainly works for Südwestrundfunk (SWR) again (formed from the old ''Südwestfunk'' and Süddeutscher Rundfunk), presenting the talk show ''Menschen der Woche''. Since September 2002, he has worked for ARD as the presenter of the Saturday evening show ''Verstehen Sie Spaß?'', the German equivalent of '' Candid Camera''. Elstner presented his final episode of ''Verstehen Sie Spaß?'' on 21 November 2009. Until the start of 2005, he also presented the show ''Einfach Millionär'' ("Simply a Millionnaire") run by the ARD television lottery. In 2006 Elstner was listed in the

Rose d'Or The Rose d'Or ('Golden Rose') is an international awards festival in entertainment broadcasting and programming. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) first acquired the Rose d’Or in 1961, when it was created by Swiss Television in the lakes ...

Hall of Fame, on the 25th anniversary of his greatest success, ''Wetten, dass..?''. The same year, he went on a 517-kilometre

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

along the

Way of St James The Camino de Santiago ( la, Peregrinatio Compostellana, "Pilgrimage of Compostela"; gl, O Camiño de Santiago), known in English as the Way of St James, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint ...

, inspired by fellow television presenter

Hape Kerkeling Hans Peter Wilhelm "Hape" Kerkeling (; born 9 December 1964) is a German comedian, TV presenter, author, and actor. Career At secondary school in Recklinghausen, Hape Kerkeling and some fellow students formed a band (''Gesundfutter'', meani ...

's pilgrimage diary ''Ich bin dann mal weg'' ("I'm off for a bit, then"). Since 12 September 2006, Elstner has presented the quiz show ''Die Besten im Südwesten'' ("The Best in the Southwest") on SWR. He also presents the ARD show ''Die große Show der Naturwunder'' ("The Biggest Natural Wonders Show"), along with

Ranga Yogeshwar Ranganathan Gregoire Yogeshwar (born 18 May 1959) is a Luxembourgish physicist and science journalist based in Germany. He started gaining attention at the end of the 1980s in the Geographical distribution of German speakers, German-speaking are ...

Personal life

Elstner is married, has five children, is a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

and wears an ocular prosthetic as he has microphthalmia. He lives with his family in his own villa on Mallorca.Mallorcamagazin.com: Mallorca-Promi Frank Elstner leidet an Parkinson
(German)

''Just One Last Question''

A five-episode talk show hosted by Elstner called ''Just One Last Question'' premiered on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

on 12 June 2020.

Season 1 (2020)

References

External links

Frank Elstner
on

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Mallorcamagazin.com: Mallorca-Promi Frank Elstner leidet an Parkinson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elstner, Frank Television people from Baden-Württemberg 1942 births Living people Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg People with Parkinson's disease German emigrants to Spain ARD (broadcaster) people ZDF people RTL Group people Südwestrundfunk people People from Rastatt