The one scene from the movie Ciske the Rat (1984), in which Linda van Dyck makes her entrance as Aunt Jans in a satin-shining dressing gown, is worth its weight in gold. The street boys are unruly. Aunt Jans wants to punch her, but stops herself just in time. She walks to the adjoining room of the upstairs apartment in Amsterdam and in silent play she shows a range of emotions: anger, sadness, despair, and also love. Washerwoman Aunt Jans is Ciske’s father’s new lover.
Last Sunday, December 17, film and stage actress Linda van Dyck passed away in her hometown of Amsterdam at the age of 75. Her family announced this. At the beginning of 2021, Van Dyck suffered a cerebral infarction, which left her partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
She was born on May 18, 1948 in Amsterdam as Linda Marianne de Hartogh. Her stepfather was Ko van Dijk (1916-1978), one of the most famous actors from the pre- and post-war theater. As an actor’s name, Linda Marianne adopted the name of Linda van Dyck, deliberately adding ‘y’ and ‘c’ to create some distance from her stepfather.
In the 1960s she performed as a singer in the Hague pop group Boo and the Booboo’s, which she co-founded. She became a well-known figure through her participation in numerous television programs. In pop programs for young people such as Fan club and Muff Gaga (1965-1968) she could be seen and heard as a beat singer; her first single was called ‘Stengun’. After that short singing period, she left for Sweden in 1969 where she lived with director Lasse Hallström; she learned Swedish and made numerous television shows. From 1973 she focused on a theater and film career in the Netherlands and developed into a much sought-after and prominent actress.
Aunt Jans
One of her greatest successes was the role of Aunt Jans in Ciske the Ratshe was also seen in, among others The gangster girl (1966) based on the novel of the same name by Remco Campert, The border (1984), Daens (1992), Floris (2004) and The schnitzel paradise (2005).
Roll in for her Two queens and a prince (1981) and Breathless (1982), she was named the Netherlands’ best actress in 1982. On February 7, 2010, she was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 1989, Van Dyck married Jaap Nolst Trenité, whom she divorced in 2016. Their son Jamie Nolst Trenité became known as a reporter RTL Boulevard.
Van Dyck was praised for the passionate ferocity of her playing, in which she quickly changed emotions and register. In 2007 she played a remarkably subdued, beautiful stage role Una giornata particolare after the film of the same name by Ettore Scola. Of course everyone thought of Sophia Loren when thinking about this stage version, but Van Dyck resisted the comparison superiorly. Director Peter de Baan made a moving, subdued version of this special day in May 1938. With disarming acting, Van Dyck managed to express her character’s pain in expressing so much love for her unattainable, gay neighbor, all against the background of the rise of Mussolini. For this role she was nominated for the Theater Audience Award.
Theater love
Theater was and remained her greatest love, ultimately more than film. That’s how she excelled Death and the girl (2003) for which she was nominated for the NRC Audience Award. For the wonderfully tranquil Autumn Sonata she won the 2006 Theater Audience Award. Her portrayal of Martha in the notoriously complex, fascinating play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) by Edward Albee was nominated for the highest theater award, the Theo d’Or. In her role as Martha, Linda van Dyck rose above herself in the scenes in which she and her husband George (Victor Löw) find each other in the painful loss of their son, whom they never had. Only in their fabrications, and that made for great play.
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