Lise Nørgaard, Matador | Matador’s mother: She who described mild Denmark (1917–2023)
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In 1979, the TV series Matador hit like a bomb among the brother people in the south. Through 24 episodes spread over a year, Lise Nørgaard managed to gather absolutely the entire Danish family in front of the screen. Korsbæk quickly became a household name and “everyone” knew the Skjern and Varnæs families. Not to mention the pig dealer Larsen, the communist Røde or the district attorney Hansen.
The local intrigues crossed class divides and old enmities. Lise Nørgaard drew deliciously vicious caricatures of the city’s rich people. But the middle class and the working class also got their kicks.
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What all the characters in Matador had in common was that they never got enough. Nørgaard also had room to explain why the bank manager had become a decadent slipper hero – and what made a traveling salesman set up his own fashion boutique in the middle of this sleepy town.
On video
It would take nine long years before the state monopoly NRK made sure to get Matador on Norwegian screens.
I myself was one of the lucky ones who early discovered the box set with all 24 episodes on video. Therefore, I had detailed knowledge of the imaginary town of Korsør and its many inhabitants when I moved to Copenhagen in 1987. And THAT should prove useful. Because virtually every actor of importance had had a role in Matador, so I had already become well acquainted with them.
Lise Nørgaard had already become a very rare star – just one step below the queen. I saw her occasionally at premiere parties or book launches. The short woman remained dressed in the background, preferably with a cigarillo in one hand and a glass of sherry in the other. And she often socialized with younger, female journalists – so that she could occasionally hear the final roar from their corner. No reason to doubt that Madame had a sharp tongue.
The laughter
Matador takes place from 1929 to 1947 and is not least about how the Danes got through the war. Here, too, Lise Nørgaard managed to weave together a story where neither resistance fighters nor other actors from reality needed to feel left out as a group.
Laughter was central to everything – who doesn’t remember Pig Butcher Larsen throwing a piece of sausage to Kvik while he shouted that “it’s a German”? (How many times have I not experienced in a Copenhagen restaurant that a sausage comes flying through the air while a prankster shouts “it’s a German”?)
Asbjørn Svarstad
Asbjørn Svarstad started writing in the local newspaper Dagningen, for some years was linked to VG. From 1987 Dagbladet’s stringer in Copenhagen. Since 1996 lived permanently in Berlin where he has worked for various Scandinavian media. Works mostly with historical feature articles, political commentary and is an authorized guide in Sachsenhausen.
Once I was seated next to Ove Sprogøe (1919–2004) in a restaurant near Tivoli. Since the popular actor recognized the then Mrs. Svarstad – who had interviewed him several times – we started talking about finding and being.
He said with a fat grin that all the other actors had become stuck in his role from Matador. “They never get out of it”, laughed Sprogøe – who played Dr. Hansen – with badly hidden glee in his voice. “How did you avoid it?”, my better half wanted to know. “In people’s minds, I am Egon Olsen in the Olsen gang”, he laughed self-deprecatingly.
Old newspapers
Lise Nørgaard had grown up under good conditions in Roskilde, where her parents lived like some of the actors in Korsbæk. The name of this town also arose as a cross between Korsør and Holbæk.
There was hardly an interview with Nørgaard without her being confronted with the question of who had been the model for the figures in Matador. Was it really her father who hid behind the series’ bank manager? (“No!”). She picked a little here and there. The author once admitted that for years she read old local newspapers from the farming country of Zealand, in order to get inspiration for absurd problems of the kind that fit into her story.
Because she can’t have made it all up herself. The story of Miss Møghe, for example – who was an old maid and looked after her over 100-year-old mother. The aging teacher Andersen became pushy one evening to the extent that Miss Møghe felt compelled to trick him out on the terrace. Afterwards she locked the door and left the love-sick man sitting there in the harvest cold. The next morning he had contracted pneumonia, something teacher Andersen did not survive. I don’t say particularly celebratory myself – but with Nørgaard told in such a way that it’s just about giving up.
Have a good time
The radar couple Rolv Wesenlund (1936–2013) and Egil Monn-Iversen (1928–2017) were happy Copenhagen friends – and of course Matador fans at heart. One summer evening at Krogh’s Fiskerestaurant, they told merrily about the dinosaurs at Marienlyst – those who had to be persuaded for nine long years before they realized that Matador was to be shown on NRK.
And what a success it was. The Norwegians were – at least almost – as enthusiastic as the Danes about the anecdotes from Korsbæk. It was something about the fact that Lise Nørgaard managed her countrymen simply in the way that we like to associate with “typical Danes” – i.e. life-affirming, liberal, tolerant world champions in “hygge pygge”. (We are now talking about the time BEFORE Mette Frederiksen became prime minister.)
Lise Nørgaard had novels about her life and told the nation about what it was like to stand up and advance in a Danish newspaper in a world totally dominated by men – where metoo is on the daily menu for pictures like her. But she probably had more to worry about than all the hostile colleagues and bosses combined. And she gradually showed them that she could do the same as them – and she did.
This is how you set considerations as an important champion of the women’s cause – a theme that is also taken up in Matador in different ways.
One million DVDs
The group of four often went for lye and cold water, she has admitted in an interview. They all did well in life and became, in their own way, familiar faces. Well into adulthood, they have told about a mother who was absent for long periods – and whom no one had ever experienced with a vacuum cleaner or cloth in hand. “They survived growing up”, was her brief comment on the matter.
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Matador just went on and on. After the whole country had shown the series three times on TV, it was sold on a million videocassettes – and after it came out on DVD, it really went out a million copies in that market as well.
A real Korsbæk
Seven years ago, a whole Korsbæk was opened in the amusement park Bakken north of Copenhagen. It says Postgården from Matador, Damernes Magasin and all the other shops. With a fast-paced staff of 13 professional actors, visiting guests from the many restaurants also get well-known entertainment with them when shopping. Just guess what Grisehandler Larsen shouts to Kvikk when he throws the piece of sausage down the main street in Korsbæk.
Lise Nørgaard has written herself into a permanent place in Danish history books. And Matador has become the Danes’ story about themselves. For a lady.