Bobby Brederlow

Bobby Brederlow has given people with disabilities a level of visibility never before attained in Germany. Bobby Brederlow was born with trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome, and is Germany’s best-known actor with a disability. Brederlow has acted in the television series Liebe und andere Katastrophen (Love and Other Catastrophes), as well as making appearances in other series, such as Alphateam, Für alle Fälle Stefanie and Tatort. For his role in Liebe und andere Katastrophen, he was awarded the Bambi Prize in 1999. In the same year, he also received the “Bobby Prize” of the Bundesvereinigung Lebenshilfe (German National Counselling Association for People with Disabilities), a prize named after him. The then Federal Minister of Health, Ulla Schmidt of the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Eng.: Social Democratic Party of Germany) honoured him and his artistic work with the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) in 2004. His brother Gerd Brederlow chronicled Bobby’s extraordinary life in the book Bobby, Herr Bredi und Mister Herr Bendel, which was published in 2001.