Harald Madsen

Clown, actor and circus director. Born 20/11 1890 (Harald Martin Bergman Madsen, known as Miehe-Madsen and Patachon), deceased 13/7 1949 - 58 years old. Married to Anna Ingeborg Helga Sandberg (born in Oslo).

In the 1920s and early 30s, Pat and Patachon – Carl Schenstrøm and Harald Madsen respectively – became a trademark for Danish film. Palladium and Lau Lauritzen achieved great international success with the comedic duo, now also known as Fyrtårnet og Bivognen, Fyrtårnet och Släpvagnen, Long and Short, and Wat and Half-Wat.

Following the death of Patachon in 1949, the couple was very aptly characterized in the paper Nationaltidende: "When the two first came walking hand in hand, on an endless country road that continued from the screen right into the audience room, it was something completely new (...) The films also had an easy-to-understand moral, and both adults and children sympathized with the nice little "Patachon", which not only fared so pitifully badly in the conflicts with the harsh, calculating world, but was also constantly held down by his own vagabond companion, the sane, lecturing "Pat ", completely oblivious to his own comical nature, thinking it was Patachon’s fault every time the pair was ridiculed. In this interplay between the self-righteous, domineering comic figure and the humble little helper, who, out of sheer eagerness to excuse his existence, does the most uncontrollable stupidities, lay the idea of the couple Pat and Patachon".

In the world of the circus, Miehe-Madsen began as a contortionist, trapeze artist and rider, then clown with August Miehe and culminated as circus director after the conclusion of his film career in 1934.

He made his film debut in Sweden in 1917 in the role of candidate Lampe in Mauritz Stiller's 'Alexander the Great', but continued to work in the circus. One evening, Lau Lauritzen and Palladium's director Svend Nielsen sat in the stands, and they were convinced that Miehe-Madsen was their true Patachon. In addition to the Danish Pat and Patachon films, Harald Madsen and Carl Schenstrøm also recorded their vagabond films abroad, i.e. Sweden, Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Harald Madsen suffered from periods of compulsive thoughts and the final years of his life were affected by illness.

Literature: Hauke Lange-Fuchs (red.): Pat und Patachon (Tyskland, 1979). Marguerite Engberg: Fy & Bi (1980). Lars Jakobsen: Fyrtårnet og Bivognen (2002).