Biography

German film actor, often in comic roles. Began on the classical stage (including performing in Shakespearean roles). He was the son of a writer/politician and a Hungarian countess. From 1969 to 1980, he was director/manager of the Thalia-Theater in Hamburg; from 1980 to 1985, he was general director of the Staatliche Schauspielbuehnen in Berlin.

In 1980, he moved to the Berlin State Theater as General Director. Despite occasional artistic successes such as the Hans Fallada revue Jeder stirbt für sich allein (directed by Peter Zadek) and Hans Neuenfels' ambitious productions of Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris, Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, Robert Musil's Die Schwärmer, and Jean Genet's Der Balkon (The Balcony), Gobert generally failed to fulfill the high expectations placed on him as Hans Lietzau's successor. His contract was not renewed beyond the 1984/85 season. The final production of Schiller's Wallenstein, with Gobert in the title role (directed by Klaus Emmerich, with dramaturgical collaboration by Heiner Müller), was also panned. Hellmuth Karasek wrote: "A complete failure, a third-class funeral. A farewell wasted, squandered, messed up. If anything on these evenings could have had tragic grandeur, it was Gobert's rude awakening from the Gründgens dream.".

In 1961, Gobert was awarded the German Critics' Prize.

The Hamburg Senate awarded him the Medal for Art and Science in 1980.

In 1977 he received the Silver Leaf of the Dramatists' Union for his services and in 1980 he was the winner of the Golden Camera as narrator and actor in The Good Doctor.