As the family confirmed on Monday, Adlon died peacefully last Sunday surrounded by his family in Los Angeles, California. Adlon made film history almost 40 years ago with the bizarre comedy “Out of Rosenheim” (1987). In the film, a buxom Marianne Sägebrecht wearing a traditional hat pulled a suitcase through the American desert in a Californian town and met a young black motel owner – the beginning of a touching female friendship. Under the title “Baghdad Café”, the film was a global success and was showered with awards.
Two years earlier, Adlon had already made the film “Sugar Baby” with his voluptuous leading actress, whom he once described as an “Alpine version of Marlene Dietrich.” In it, the native Bavarian played a lonely employee of a funeral home who falls in love with the voice of a subway driver.
Shortly after his success with “Out of Rosenheim”, Adlon took the film title seriously and moved far away from Upper Bavaria. At the end of the 1980s he moved to Los Angeles. “I came here and stayed – like Jasmine from the Bagdad Café,” he once wrote.
“I’d rather remain this little fish”
In the USA, Percy Adlon liked to shoot without the big Hollywood studios. Although he briefly dreamed of a career in the film metropolis, he quickly realized that he was far too stubborn for it, he once said. “I want to control my own budget. I’d rather remain that little fish that all the big fish in Hollywood think, ‘You’re not even plankton for us’.”
In addition to feature films, Adlon made around 150 documentaries in his career. In 2002 he also made his debut as an opera director with the production of Gaetano Donizetti’s “Liebestrank” in Berlin. A few years later he brought “Out of Rosenheim” to the stage as a musical. The piece premiered in Barcelona and then went on tour. However, Adlon did not come close to the success of his internationally acclaimed film.
“A proud Bavarian in Hollywood”
Bavaria’s Art Minister Markus Blume (CSU) praised Adlon on Monday as a “free spirit, cult director and proud Bavarian in Hollywood.” Adlon brought Bavaria’s cultural heritage to the international stage with films like “Out of Rosenheim” and “Zuckerbaby”. According to Blume, Adlon was also significantly involved in the design of the anniversary exhibition on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the sculptor Fritz Koenig (1924-201) in Landshut. Blume said he was touched and impressed by Adlon’s passion and inventiveness at the anniversary exhibition. The Free State is deeply grateful to Percy Adlon for his life’s work and his commitment to his Bavarian homeland.
