Trivia

Uncle of Greet Rouffaer.

Father of Bart Rouffaer.

Father of Vincent Rouffaer.

Father of Peter Rouffaer.

Senne Rouffaer was a Flemish actor, lecturer and film director.

Rouffaer was closely associated with the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels, and appeared in many of their productions. In the 1970s he also became a director.

From 1951 to 1956 he played in the Reizend Volkstheater while he taught diction (correct pronunciation) in several schools in the Kempen, Flanders. Afterwards he was affiliated with the Brussels KVS. He was a man with a great love for language and enjoyed reading poems. With his measured diction and precisely placed accents he was a late heir to the rhetorical acting tradition. He stated that "the actor must serve the entire set-up, the entire game, and must not pursue open curtains".

Senne Rouffaer was also co-director for the Flemish youth serials Kapitein Zeppos (1964), Johan en de Alverman (1965), Axel Nort (1966), Midas (1967), Fabian van Fallada (1969), Keromar (1971)Het zwaard van Ardoewaan (1972) and De Kat (1973).

Rouffaer was best known for his role as Captain Zeppos, alias Jan Stephorst, in the television series of the same name. This series was very popular in 1964 and even had a sequel four years later. It was purchased by the BBC and broadcast on many foreign channels. Many people remembered the dynamic direction and the swinging soundtrack of the opening credits (a well-known piece of music by Bert Kaempfert, entitled Living It Up). During the recordings, he started a relationship with Vera Veroft, who played the role of his cousin Ariane Despinal. Zeppos was more the type of the courteous English gentleman, who did not fight with his fists, but stylishly handled the foil, rode a horse and cleaved through the water with his car. That was the captain on the ship who conquered the hearts of the Flemish. After his death, he received a memorial plaque at the Hertboommolen in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Lombeek, an iconic location in Captain Zeppos.

After the war he worked at the Kredietbank, but theatre pedagogue Ast Fonteyne advised him to take diction lessons, because the urge to act was too great. He then took lessons at the Conservatory in Antwerp and began to dabble in the amateur circuit.

After his secondary education at the Minor Seminary of Hoogstraten (Flanders), the war put a spanner in the works for him to pursue higher education.

His last roles on stage, in 1998-1999 in particular, were fitting farewell roles such as that of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, and then the monologue The Interrogation by Robert Pinget.

From 1970 he taught at the Conservatory in Antwerp and since 1975 at the Conservatory in Brussels.

His role in Minder dood dan de anderen (1992) by Frans Buyens earned him the Joseph Plateau Prize (= Joseph Plateau Award was an accolade presented by the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent, first awarded in 1985).

As a theatre actor he has truly masterfully interpreted the great classics. He knew the Shakespeare plays and the great Greek tragedies and monologues completely by heart.