Johannes Heester, 1903-

WHILE IT IS NOT exactly what people in his adopted homeland call a "round birthday," by the time you turn 106 every birthday is a cause for celebration. This time it is the turn of the Dutch-Austrian singer and actor Johannes Heesters. He is not only the world's oldest active stage performer, he is also one of Europe's most controversial.

Johannes Heesters was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands on December 5, 1903. As a child he dreamed of becoming a priest. He later embarked on a banking apprencticeship before discovering his true vocation as a performer. At the age of sixteen he began to study music and acting, appearing on the stage for the first time in 1921. His film debut followed in 1924 as a supporting actor in the Dutch movie Cirque Hollandais. But silent movies could not satisfy the young tenor's ambitions and Heesters continued to seek stage roles. In 1927 he auditioned for the German band leader Harry Frommermann, who would subsequently found the fabled "Comedian Harmonists," but refused to sign a contract when Frommermann told him that he would not receive a wage for the first several months. Heesters landed his first major role on stage in 1930 and went on to become an accomplished operetta singer, debuting at the Vienna Volksoper in 1934.

Heesters married Belgian operetta singer Louise Ghijs
in 1930. They remained together until her death in 1985

In 1936 Heesters moved to Berlin, where he performed on the stages of the Admiralspalast, the Metropol, and the Komische Oper - all of them popular venues recently purged of their Jewish ensemble members. But he reached millions of fans through his numerous starring roles in film musicals and operettas. Best known for his role as Count Danilo in The Merry Widow, he quickly became one of Germany's most popular actors, the very essence of the carefree, debonaire heartthrob that was in such demand on both sides of the Atlantic in those tense times.

It is hardly surprising that this chapter of Heesters' life, the highpoint of his long career, remains a source of controversy. It is true that "Jopie," as his fans have been calling him since those days, never joined the Nazi Party or applied for German citizenship, nor is he known to have made any statements in support of the National Socialist regime or ideology. His defenders also point out that he was never an anti-Semite and performed together with a group of refugee German-Jewish actors in the Netherlands in 1938. But there is no doubt that he willingly took advantage of the opportunities that Goebbels' entertainment empire offered a talented and ambitious star, and it is well known that Hitler attended several of his performances of The Merry Widow, the Führer's favorite operetta. After a performance in Munich in 1939, Hitler personally came down to congratulate him. "Herr Heesters, you were wonderful again," the dictator told him. Later on, Heesters admitted that he was flattered by this attention, since the Dutch queen would never have deigned to congratulate a mere operetta star in public.  This favor from above allowed Heesters, like so many other entertainers of his era, to sail through these years virtually unaware of the horror that surrounded him. Decades after the war, Heesters' name was discovered among 1,041 others on the Nazis' secret "God-gifted List" of "vital" cultural personalities - including conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and composer Carl Orff - who should be exempted from mobilization and otherwise protected by the state at all costs.

Publicity shot from the 1930s

Heesters is not only the world's oldest active stage performer, but he is also the oldest man you would ever expect to see in a court of law. In 2006 German author and filmmaker Volker Kühn stated publicly that Heesters and his colleagues from Munich's Gärtnerplatztheater were bused to the Dachau concentration camp in 1941 and asked to perform for SS guards. Kühn also cited an interview he made with the late Austrian communist Viktor Metejka in 1990, where Metejka, a prisoner at the camp, claimed that he had been put in charge of pulling open the curtain for Heester's concert. Heesters immediately sued Kühn and demanded that he retract his statements. He has never denied being in the camp, a day he remains profoundly ashamed of, claiming that the SS merely sent him to Dachau as a visitor in a dog and pony show designed to silence rumors of humans rights violations there and never sang a note. In late 2008 Heesters lost his case and Kühn can continue to make his claims in public. But not even Kühn has ever called Heesters a Nazi, merely a naive opportunist who let himself be instrumentalized by an inhuman regime.

Johannes Heesters (on the right) visiting
Dachau concentration camp, 1941

Heesters resumed his career shortly after the war, largely in Vienna, where he applied for and received Austrian citizenship. His years as a "hanger-on" endeared him to war-weary audiences who sought relief from their own troubled memories. He appeared in countless stage roles (particularly as Count Danilo, a role he performed at least 1,600 times), in films and particularly on TV. In 1953 he traveled to Hollywood, where he appeared in Otto Preminger's movie The Moon is Blue. In 1997  Heesters entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest stage actor. Between 1996 and 2001 he eventually performed more than 250 times at the side of his second wife, Simone Rethel, in the play Ein gesegnetes Alter ("a ripe old age").

But Heesters has few fans in his native country. After all, he continued appearing on stage and making films for the Germans long after the Wehrmacht marched into the Netherlands in the spring of 1940. When he tried to make a comeback in 1964, in the role of a resistance fighter in The Sound of Music, Dutch audiences literally chased him off the stage, calling him a "fascist" and a "collaborator." He did not appear in the Netherlands again until February, 2008, when at a performance in Amersfoort  - where he sang in his trademark top hat and tails - the boos were finally mixed with cheers. Nearby, a local group organized a concert featuring music composed by Jews murdered in Nazi death camps. But at the end of the evening, the Dutch gave their prodigal son a standing ovation.

He has won basically every musical and acting award Germany and Austria have to offer, some of them numerous times - for example, he as already received eight "Bambi Awards" - and continues to perform. He appeared in the German film comedy 1 1/2 Knights in 2008 and most recently acted on stage in the summer of 2009, when he played the role of God in the classic play Everyman at the Altes Schauspielhaus in Stuttgart.

If you've read this far, you have long since figured out how Heesters will be celebrating his 106th birthday: performing on a stage in Vienna. In February of 2010 he has scheduled a concert with the Salon Orchestra of Weimar, and despite the complete loss of his eyesight due to glaucoma in 2009 he has no plans for retirement. What is the secret of his longevity and unprecedented vitality? Scientists will likely be debating that question for years. But one thing is for sure: it's not due to a healthy lifestyle. A lifelong smoker, Heesters still smokes two to three cigarettes a day, according to his wife Simone, who is forty-six years his junior. He gave it up for a few months at 103, she says, but sees no point in stopping now.