Loriot
German humorist, cartoonist, film director and actor (1923–2011)
Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow (12 November 1923 – 22 August 2011), known as Vicco von Bülow or Loriot (German: [loˈʁi̯oː] ), was a German comedian, humorist, cartoonist, film director, actor and writer. As an artist, he was almost exclusively known under his pen name Loriot, which is the French term for the bird oriole depicted as a crest in the coat of arms of the Bülow family.
He was best known for his cartoons, the sketches from his 1976 television series Loriot, alongside Evelyn Hamann, and his two movies, Ödipussi (1988) and Pappa Ante Portas (1991).
On the television series Unsere Besten (Our Best), Loriot was ranked the 54th best German ever. In a special comedy episode of Unsere Besten, he was ranked as the most famous German comedian ever.
Early and personal life
Vicco von Bülow was born in Brandenburg an der Havel in Prussia, today Brandenburg, in modern north-eastern Germany. The von Bülow family belongs to German aristocracy. His parents, Johann-Albrecht Wilhelm von Bülow (1899–1972) and Charlotte (née von Roeder, 1899–1929), separated soon after he was born, and his mother died when he was six. Von Bülow and his brother grew up in Berlin with their grandmother.
Von Bülow was still in school when World War II started.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Loriot” is german humorist, cartoonist, film director and actor (1923–2011). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Loriot, German and humorist, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “german humorist, cartoonist, film director and actor (1923–2011)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q44736. VIAF identifies the subject as 115289807. The Library of Congress control number is n81072130. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2011, 1976 and 1988.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Loriot” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.