Jacob Truedson Demitz

Jacob Truedson Demitz
Demitz at his Mae West Centenary dinner given at Berns in Stockholm, Sweden, August 17, 1993
Background information
Birth name	Lars-Erik Jacob Ridderstedt
Also known as	Lars Jacob
Born	(1948-08-13) August 13, 1948
Origin	Sweden, United States
Genres	Entertainment director, writer
Years active	1961–present
Associated acts	AlexCab, Wild Side Story, Westites & Maeniacs, CabarEng

Jacob Truedson Demitz (born Lars-Erik Jacob Ridderstedt on August 13, 1948^[1]) is a Swedish-American writer and entertainment director who wrote a 1996 book about Scandinavian kings and, as Lars Jacob,^[2] has directed hundreds of underground cabaret shows in the United States and Europe since 1972. He grew up in Illinois, returned to Sweden and later lived for extended periods in Florida and California.

Origin and names

Demitz was born in Örebro, [Sweden,^[1] the son of singer Birgit Ridderstedt and C. Erik Ridderstedt, and first arrived in the United States as an infant, living in and near Chicago until the age of 13. Through his father's crafts-and-gifts import business^[3][4] and his mother's entertainment ventures^[5] he was inspired early in an inter-cultural environment.

Not wanting to be mistaken for a cleric uncle also called Lars Ridderstedt, who had gained notoriety in Sweden, he decided in 1969 to use Jacob as his first name of address. After noticing for many years the problems Americans had in using his parents' last name, he adopted the surname of Demitz in 1980,^[6] the original name from 1693 of the extinct House of Ridderstedt before nobility,^[7] and he was the first in 300 years to change his name back.^[6]

His patronymic Truedson added in 1990, stems from a Scanian great-great-grandfather Trued Abrehamsson,^[8] whose lineage has been traced back to the 1640s when the area and the family were Danish, and whose descendants outside of Europe inhabit many of the United States today.^[9]

Writer's career

Throne of a Thousand Years (ISBN 91-630-5030-7)^[10][11] had more than 30 years of research by Demitz before it was published in 1996, appreciated particularly for its English-language name forms for Swedish royalty and a lack of nationalism.^[12] The book fulfilled collection requirements as a reference work and was included as such at more than 180 libraries,^[13] including the national libraries of 73 countries.^[14] It has been out of print since 2001.

Demitz when photographing royalty portrayed on the medieval altar at St. Canute's Cathedral in Denmark in 2009.

Demitz's 500-volume historical library was accepted in advance for posthumous donation to the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library at Gustavus Adolphus College, making him a member, as of 2005, of the college's Gustavus Heritage Partnership,^[15] named for King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden.

An STIM member since 1970, Demitz has scripted and directed Max von Sydow^[16] for television in English and written special lyrics for major corporations. He has also done a regular half-page editorial column in 1996–1997 for Nya Ludvika Tidning^[17] plus numerous other articles for selected press^[18] and information websites like Find A Grave.^[19]

Demitz's published song lyrics^[20] started with a record album for EMI in 1970 which had good reviews,^[21] and a single for Odeon the following year, that both included his Swedish version of Burt Bacharach's "Close to You".^[22] Other adaptations include "Santa Baby", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (both in Swedish), and an original company song in English for SAS Group called "Flying Time".^[23]

He also has written as a human rights activist, and his complaints led to the censure of one of the Sweden's top judges in 1993, over erased trial tapes of testimony,^[24] and in 1995 to a nationally publicized debate^[25] over the use of young children to sell lottery tickets, commented on by a Cultural Minister in agreement.

In later years, Demitz has reviewed and rewritten English text for Swedish individuals and organizations, including Karolinska Institutet in 2005.^[26] From 2013 to 2014 CabarEng published recordings featuring over 50 of his song lyrics (also in 2015 a list of them)^[27] in Swedish, as well as special underground cabaret lyrics in English, mainly with Yaiya Sacasios and other young members of the group, and in a few cases more established personalities like Kjerstin Dellert,^[28] Kim Anderzon,^[29] Gunvor Pontén^[30] and Christer Lindarw.^[31] As a lyricist, he has cooperated in creating text to their melodies with composers such as Ian Whitcomb, John Groves,^[32] Berndt Egerbladh and Harald Lindell, and has collaborated occasionally with Örjan Ramberg and other co-writers on the lyrics.

Additional entertainment

Lars Jacob and his AlexCab cabaret ensemble at Alexandra's in Stockholm, September 1975

James Brown and disc jockey Lars Jacob in Tampa in 1972

Demitz debuted as a solo singer at the age of nine in one of his mother's programs on WTTW,^[33] was active in music and drama in school and began mainstream stage performances in a short-lived Swedish musical in 1968.^[34][35]

Having graduated Studentexamen that year at Mörby Läroverk (a junior college) in Danderyd, Sweden, specializing in languages and the musical arts, he desired within two years to cross the Atlantic again and moved to Florida. Attracting interest as a model of free-spirited European youth, he appeared in Tampa Bay area press^[36] and in 1972 as a featured guest on the talk shows of Herb Hunt^[37] and George Michelle.^[38]

A Stockholm and Gothenburg disc jockey^[39][40] and dance leader in the early 1970s, as Lars Jacob, Demitz choreographed disco scenes in an avant-garde motion picture More from the Language of Love.^[41]

Returning there from Florida, he soon was Director of Entertainment for Sweden's nightclub queen Alexandra Charles and in 1975–1976 put on celebrated shows for her^[42] and in Gothenburg^[43] that he had created earlier in Miami Beach. Fans of his decadent cabarets included the members of ABBA and tennis champion Björn Borg,^[44] who saw rambunctious new ground broken in domestic Swedish entertainment.^[45] His position at Charles's famous club gave him the opportunity to have a long lasting effect on some genres in Swedish entertainment.^[46]

Lars Jacob’s mimical spoof Wild Side Story ran more than 500 times (1973–2004) in Florida, Sweden,^[47] California^[48] and Spain.^[49]

Demitz hosted a formal celebrity dinner at Berns on the Mae West Centennial in 1993.^[50] A month later his intended show extravaganza was cancelled there because of new demands from the restaurant due to insufficient sales of the SEK 1,000 tickets.^[51]

That same year and in 1995 he did some of his most appreciated performances as the "Preacher" in an outdoor musical event called Farmer's Wedding (by August Söderman) performed in his mother's native town of Ludvika^[52] and at the Stockholm Water Festival^[53] in the royal Kungsträdgården park.

FamSAC's Trued Family reunion led by Jacob Truedson Demitz in Blair, Nebraska on June 3, 2007

For a youth project called Läckerhetsvakten (a pun on 'security guard' for youthful health and attraction), the F.U.S.I.A. cabaret school (1998–2005) where Demitz was the creative director, from the hands of Alice Bah (as of 2014 Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy) got one of Skandia's "Ideas for Life" grants in 2001.^[54] The school was founded by Demitz and Agnes Källström.

He has also lived in Salzburg, Austria where his voice was schooled in 1968–1969 by Grete Menzel,^[55] has English and Swedish as primary languages and speaks fluent German, French and Spanish plus dialects and phrases of a number of other tongues.^[36] Being multilingual, and his entertainment background, worked for Demitz in 1999–2000 at the 5-star Palm Oasis resort (belonging to Interval International) on Grand Canary, where he became a successful timeshare agent and defended ethical practices only in that field. The work drew severe criticism anyway from press^[56] in Sweden, where all forms of timeshare have had bad publicity and have been frowned upon.

Eurovision Song Contest winner (2015) Måns Zelmerlöw and Lars Jacob when the former was in a musical at Göta Lejon Theatre and the latter was directing cabarets next door at Blå Skåpet on Götgatan in Stockholm in 2010

Since 2005 he is Chairman of nonprofit foundation Southerly Clubs^[57] and since 2006 Deputy Chairman of FamSAC,^[58] an international society of some 5,000 relatives, among them Stanley M. Truhlsen, Mattias Klum, Erland Brand and Siri von Reis. Demitz has arranged and hosted international family reunions and commemorations, some of them large, in the Swedish capital and provinces of Sudermania, Scania^[59] and Dalecarlia^[60] as well as in New York City, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming.

For the CabarEng ensemble and its producer Emil Eikner,^[61] from 2009 until his retirement in 2013, Lars Jacob directed Tuesday night cabarets such as CaCa Bleu^[62] and ÄngelCab (2013)^[63][64] in Stockholm. He went on tour in 2011 with the group doing A Tribute Westward and Cabaret Large A-Cup^[65] at venues in Manhattan, Washington DC, Annapolis and Boston.^[66] In retirement he is still consulted by cabaret groups and occasionally writes or lectures as a freelance inter-cultural communicator.

Lars Jacob's ensembles, recording projects and cabaret orchestras have included Logan Carter (stage debut 1972), Thomas Dellert Dellacroix (stage debut 1975), Anders Eljas (debut as band leader 1975), Steve Vigil (stage debut 1975), Christer Lindarw (stage debut 1976), Ulla Jones, Graham Tainton, Christina Schollin, Berndt Egerbladh, Camilla Henemark, Johanna Lind (TV debut 1993), Chesty Morgan (band), Max von Sydow, Jimmie Kersmo (stage debut 1998), Helena Mattsson, Mohombi Moupondo (stage debut 2002), Yaiya Sacasios, Kim Anderzon, Gunvor Pontén, Hans E. Wallman and Kjerstin Dellert. He lived with Vigil from 1974 to 1982.

Awards

Demitz with his front desk staff in Beverly Hills in 1982

Formally, Jacob Truedson Demitz wears The Beverly Hills Hotel's five-year gold pin, from work 1976–1984 as Front Desk Manager and Duty Manager there,^[47] and a small decoration awarded in 1993 for various deeds in his Dalecarlian motherland by Sveriges Hembygdsförbund.^[67] The latter is the Association of Swedish Homelands and has over 1,900 homeland societies from all parts of that country as member organizations.

With Dustin Hoffman on the set of Lenny in Fort Lauderdale in 1974

References

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