My whole life, everything has always happened by accident.
The following interview with the singer, actress, and choreographer Sissy Engl took place on July 6, 2012, in the then premises of the „Fachakademie für künstlerischen Tanz, Gesang und Musical“ on Einsteinstraße in Munich. The „Mandolin Motions Einstein Show Academy“ was founded by Sissy Engl and Peter Mühlen in 1980 in the Munich suburb of Haar and later moved to Einsteinstraße 123, a heritage building in the Haidhausen district with a Neo-Baroque facade. The address is noteworthy because it contributed to the naming of the Show Academy. Although Mandolin Motions Show Academy moved to Grillparzer Straße 3 after Peter Mühlen’s death, „Einstein“ is still included in the name.
Sissy Engl looks back on an extremely rich, colorful life full of highs and lows, about which she provides deep insights in the following. As a singer, actress, and choreographer, she appeared in Holiday on Ice, on stage, in film, and on television. Alongside Peter Mühlen, who, like her, was a major figure in Munich’s cultural scene, particularly at Bayerischer Rundfunk, Sissy Engl influenced Munich’s cultural industry for many decades. She is particularly remembered for her performances in plays by Fernando Arrabal or Jean Paul Sartre, for example as the „respectable whore“ in the play of the same name by Sartre. With her role as Monika in the play „Magic Afternoon“ by the Austrian Wolfgang Bauer, with which Bauer achieved international breakthrough as a playwright in 1968, Sissy Engl provoked the theater audience. But the provocations did not end there – Sissy Engl did something that many did in the wake of the „sexual liberation“: she acted in films like „Graf Porno und die lebenslustigen Töchter“ (1969), „Dr. Fummel und seine Gespielinnen“ (1970), and „Hurra die deutsche Sexpartei“ (1974).
Many stars of the Munich cultural scene, such as Katja Ebstein or Konstantin Wecker, belong to Sissy Engl’s colleagues and peers from her years in the Munich cultural industry, and they left personal impressions and experiences with her – not always the best ones, by the way! Sissy tells about these experiences in the following interview. At the end of the conversation, we returned to her husband and long-time partner Peter Mühlen, who was already suffering from a terminal illness at the time. Nevertheless, Sissy Engl agreed to arrange an interview appointment with Peter Mühlen at their shared home in Munich Haar. It took place on August 1, 2012, under unpredictable circumstances – Peter Mühlen had attempted suicide the night before the appointment. To let the interview proceed, he instructed Sissy Engl to answer my questions. Later, to my surprise, he joined the conversation. This interview was published in a separate interview volume and was the last public appearance of Peter Mühlen. I never saw Peter Mühlen again; he died on September 15, 2012.
Content
Foreword
I forced everything upon myself.
I slept with them in the marital bed.
She was a dream dancer.
Next time I’ll spread cyanide on your sandwich!
I lift someone up very quickly.
Every finger was somehow dancing.
I thought, now all I have to do is fall – and I flew.
I can get a calf’s tooth implanted.
I then really got started right away!
Sartre congratulated me on my great success.
One night long.
I always want to forgive immediately.
He said from the beginning that he doesn’t love me.
The cow slapped me in the face with its tail.
We are paying ten percent directly to Konstantin Wecker!
I wanted to do everything differently.
Then I melted away.
Read the entire interview here as an e-book.
