Johan Kaart

For decades, Johan Kaart junior (1897-1976) was a huge star in the Dutch entertainment world. Between 1934 and 1937, he starred in seven films and after the war, he played in several more films. He also often worked for radio and television, but his main stage was the theatre.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Hollandia Film Prod./Loet C. Barnstijn. Jan van Ees, Willy Costello, and Johan Kaart jr. in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod. / Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: Willy Costello, Jan van Ees and Johan Kaart jr. in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard, no. 7. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Johan Kaart jr. in the comedy Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Johan Kaart jr. in Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Productie. Johan Kaart jr. in De familie van mijn vrouw/My Wife's Family (Jaap Speyer, 1935).

Theatre dynasty

Johannes Antonius Kaart was born in a theatre dynasty in Amsterdam in 1897. He was the son of small-time actor Johannes Antonius Kaart (Senior), and soubrette and actress Isabella Willemsens.

When Johan Junior was 16, he made his debut as an extra with the in Amsterdam located stage company Het Tooneel under the direction of Willem Royaards, against the wishes of his parents. A year later, his father gave in and sent him to acting classes.

With his stubby shape, gritty timbre and somewhat roughly cut facial features, he was not the appropriate figure for the role of the young lover. However, he soon became a star in the Dutch entertainment world. He played many classic theatre roles, but he also developed himself more and more like a comedian. In the second half of the 1930s, Kaart would find more and more work in the revue, alongside stars like Henriëtte Davids and Johan Buziau.

According to IMDb, Kaart made his screen debut in the Dutch silent film Helleveeg (Theo Frenkel, 1920) with Mien Duymaar van Twist and Lily Bouwmeester. This is a mistake, it was actually his father who appeared as a butler in the film.

Junior would have his breakthrough in one of the first Dutch sound films, De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934), based on the popular play by Herman Bouber. The film is based on a fairly well-known and still popular Dutch play, set in the Jordaan, a neighbourhood where the working class of Amsterdam used to live. Kaart played the role of 'De Schele', a cheerful Amsterdam sailor with a heart of gold. Forced by unemployment he signs, together with two comrades, for a six-year conscription to the army in the Dutch East Indies, which gives rise to numerous love affairs between the three and their girls.

Kaart played Manus or 'De Schele' (the Cross-Eyed), one of the three roguish tars of the title. The other two were Jan van Ees and Willy Costello. The three friends return from their military service in the navy. Dolle Dries is happily united with his girlfriend Blonde Greet. 'Schele Manus' courts Jans, but is less lucky since she adores luxury. The third sailor, De Blauwe, is usually tipsy. The three sailors continue their comradeship, and support each other during hardships.


Dutch postcard for the stage play Don Quichot op de Bruiloft van Kamatcho/Don Quichot on the Wedding of Kamatcho (1711) by Pieter Langendijk, starring Lau Ezerman as Don Quichotte and Johan Kaart Jr. as Sancho Panza. The play was performed by the Schouwburgtoneel of Jan Musch in the open air theatre in Valkenburg in 1920. In 1925 the play was performed again with Kaart as Sancho Panza at the Amsterdam open air theatre Frankendaal, this time by the company Vereenigd Tooneel.


Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod. / Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: Johan Kaart, Suzy Klein, Willy Costello, Henriette Davids, Jan van Ees and Sylvain Poons in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod./Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: Joan Remmelts, Jan van Ees, Sylvain Poons, Johan Kaart jr., Henriëtte Davids, Willy Costello and Susie Klein in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Hollandia Film Prod. / Loet C. Barnstijn. Johan Kaart jr., Willy Costello and Jan van Ees in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod. / Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: Willy Costello, Suzie Klein, Johan Kaart jr., Marie van Westerhoven and Jan van Ees in De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934).

Marlene Dietrich impersonation

After De Jantjes had become a surprisingly huge success, Johan Kaart went on to star in six more films between 1934 and 1937. Kaart realised that the camera did not appreciate stage acting. He exuded a natural kind of joviality that made him the audience favourite. This made Kaart a popular actor in pre-war Dutch film.

First, he reunited with director Jaap Speyer to make Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934) and De familie van mijn vrouw/My Wife's Family (Jaap Speyer, 1935) with Sylvain Poons. Whether it was a working-class character, a bohemian student or a dedicated policeman, Kaart knew how to turn each role into a believable character with equal apparent ease.

Then followed De vier Mullers/The Four Mullers (Rudolf Meinert, 1935) with Johannes Heesters, the army comedy De big van het regiment/The Mascot of the Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935) with Frits van Dongen aka Philip Dorn), and 't was een april/It was April Fools' Day (Detlev Sierck aka Douglas Sirk, Jacques van Tol, 1936).

In Kermisgasten/Carnival People (Jaap Speyer, 1936) with Henriëtte Davids, he did a hilarious Marlene Dietrich impersonation.

Dutch critic Henk van Gelder writes in his biography of Kaart at Huygens.ING: "Unlike many of his colleagues, Kaart realised very well that the camera did not allow stage acting. He radiated a natural kind of joviality that made him a crowd favourite. Whether he played a popular type, a slow student or a dedicated policeman, he easily knew how to create a credible character out of every kind of role."


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film N.V. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute. For a better view of the postcard please click double on the picture.


Dutch postcard by N.V. Monopole Film. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


Dutch vintage postcard by Monopole Film NV. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Johan Kaart in Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).

Box office hit

In the first year of the occupation, Johan Kaart again founded his own theatre company, 'De Komedianten' (The Comedians), with which he performed comedies and farces until well into 1944. Initially, the Jewish actors Sylvain Poons and Adolphe Engers also performed there, until the measures taken by the German occupying forces made this impossible.

However, Kaart's Jewish companion 'Eetje' Kinsbergen - out of the picture - continued to work as business manager. Kaart complied with the requirement that his company had to be registered with the 'Kultuurkamer' (The Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer)). After the liberation, the Central Honour Office for the Arts, which took charge of the purification, saw no reason to ban him from performing.

In 1947 De Komedianten merged with Cor van der Lugt Melsert's 'Het Nederlandsch Tooneel', with the intention of performing a more artistic repertory. However, when it turned out that hardly any audience was attracted, Kaart broke away and at the end of 1950 he started 'the Toneelgezelschap Johan Kaart'.

After the war, Johan Kaart returned to the screen in the old fashioned comedy Een koninkrijk voor een huis/A Kingdom for a House (1949), again directed by Jaap Speyer and co-starring Henriëtte Davids. Next, he played a cab driver who wants to emigrate to Australia in the comedy Sterren Stralen Overal/Stars Twinkle Everywhere (Gerard Rutten, 1953).

A huge box office hit in the Netherlands was the drama Ciske de Rat/Ciske the Rat (Wolfgang Staudte, 1955) in which Kaart played a supporting part as a fatherly police inspector who has the best interests of the Amsterdam street urchin at heart. He played more supporting parts in the comedy Kleren maken de man/Clothes Make the Man (Georg Jacoby, 1957) starring Kees Brusse and the thriller Rififi in Amsterdam (Giovanni Korporaal, 1962) with Maxim Hamel and Kaart as a police commissioner worried about crime.


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn Film, no. 1. Photo: Publicity still for the comedy Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn Film, no. 3. Photo: publicity still for Malle Gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn Film, no. 4. Photo: publicity still for Malle Gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn Film, no. 11. Photo: still for Malle Gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Johan Kaart and Riek Berkhout in Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).

Potash & Perlmutter

Johan Kaart often worked for radio and later also for TV, but his main stage was the theatre. Since 1950 he performed Potasch en Perlemoer (Potash & Perlmutter) by Montague Glass for more than 3,500 times. The farce is about the ups and downs of two constantly squabbling Jewish textile merchants. His co-star in this evergreen was Johan Boskamp.

Kaart was also acclaimed for his role as the work-shy garbage collector Alfred Doolittle in the 1960 Dutch stage version of My Fair Lady, alongside Wim Sonneveld as Professor Higgins. As a singing and dancing sixty-something, he was a vital centrepiece in a show that was performed more than seven hundred times in more than two years. Kaart's character had two of the show's greatest successes in his hands: the festive 'If I can just make it to church' and the lively 'If I can..., yes please', with which Kaart even made it into the hit list of those days.

On TV he was seen in the popular youth series Ja zuster, nee zuster/Yes Nurse, No Nurse (1967) and Oebele (1968-1971).

Between 1969 and 1972, he went on tour again with Johan Boskamp as the opponent in Potasch & Perlemoer. Forced by the aftermath of a fractured hip, caused by a fall during a performance of this success, and Parkinson's disease, he disappeared from the scene.

In 1975 the Johan Kaart Prijs was introduced, a Dutch theatre entertainment award named after him. Due to Parkinson's disease, he disappeared from the stage. Nevertheless, he kept hoping that the farewell would not be final.

In 1976, Johan Kaart died in Amsterdam at the age of 78. He was married to former actress Maria Wilhelmina Jeanne 'Willy' von Saher from 1920 till his death in 1976. They had one daughter, Freddie (1924). Johan Kaart was also the uncle of the talented film actor and opera singer Hans Kaart.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Habé Film. Johan Kaart and Jacques Bijlevelt in the comedy De Vier Mullers (1935), a Dutch version of the Austrian multilingual Alles für die Firma (1935). Both were shot at the Schonbrunn studios in Vienna. The film deals with three quarrelsome generations of textile business owners: granddad Philip (Adolf Bouwmeester), dad Max (Bijlevelt) and son Otto (Johannes Heesters). Kaart plays their go-between Jacob Schat.


Dutch postcard by Habé Film. Photo: publicity still for De Vier Mullers/The Four Mullers (Rudolf Meinert, 1935) with Johannes Heesters.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.


Dutch postcard by Editions Altona, Amsterdam, no. T 63. Photo: publicity still for Sterren Stralen Overal/Stars Twinkle Anywhere (Gerard Rutten, 1953).

Sources: Henk van Gelder (Huygens ING - Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis - Dutch), Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 28 May 2022.