Fons Rademakers. Author Rob Bogaerts / Anefo. WIKIMEDIA

Top 10 Facts about Fons Rademakers


 

Fons was born on 5th September 1920.In Roosendaal, Noord-Braddart, Netherlands. He was an actor, Director and producer.

He was a married man to a wife known as Lili Rodemaker. They had two children Fons and Alfred. Ellen Vogel and Josephine Van Gasteren are divorced.

Fon Rademaker died in 2007 in a Geneva hospital of Emphysema after the life-support machines were switched off at his request.

Let’s learn more about Fon Rademaker.

1. He was married to three wives but had children with one

Ellen Vogel after her divorce in 1949 lived with director Fons Rademaker until 1955, since 1976 she was married to Jimmy Munninghoff.

He then Married Josephine van Eastern during the second world war. She was the daughter of actor Louis Van Gasteren and the singer Elise Manage Challa.

After his divorce from Josephine van Gasteren, Lili Rademakers married Fon Rademakers the Netherlands’ most prominent filmmaker and assisted him both in real life.

She is the mother of, Fons and Alfred, two sons. In her artistic life, she served as his assistant director for several of his movies. Lili also directed two films herself both co-produced by her husband.

2. He Started his Career as an Actor and Director

The new film The Knife by Fons Rademakers. The director with two protagonists. Author Herbert Behrens. WIKIMEDIA

During a career traversing many decades, Fon Rademaker directed 11 films. Some of the films have even won several awards.

The films included: The Assault, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1986, and The Village on the River, nominated for the same award in 1959. These consecutive wins made him the first Dutch director to be nominated and win this award.

3. He was a Learned Software Engineer

Fons received his PhD in particle physics from the Univ. of Amsterdam in 1991. This was because of his work on event displays and data analysis for the DELPHI experiment at CERN’s LEP collider.

Since then he worked at CERN and had been involved in designing and developing data analysis programs. In 1991,  Fon Rademaker  joined the PAW project where he developed the column wise-tuples.

 This was a column-oriented storage system and PIAF, a parallel data analysis system, which was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1M.

 In 1995, while working as a Linux expert for HP at CERN, he started with René Brun on the ROOT project and has been involved in all aspects of the system since then. In 2001,  Fons joined the ALICE collaboration where he worked as a software architect on the initial version of the AliRoot framework.

4. He Earned Several Awards During his Acting and Directing Career

End of film week in Arnhem Miedema and cinematographer Fons Rademaker. Author Eric Koch. WIKIMEDIA

His 1960 film Makkers staakt UW wild Geraas was entered into the 11th Berlin International film. It won the silver bear awards.

During a career bounding several decades, Fon Rademaker  directed 11 films. The Assualt won the 1986 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Space Needle of the Seattle International Film Festival.

In 1959 The village on the River was nominated for the same awards. Making him the first Dutch director to be nominated and wins this award.

5. Fons Rademakers was Drafted into the Dutch Army in the Second World War

Fon Rademaker  was drafted into the Dutch army during the second world war. He was caught by the Germans but acquitted because they considered that the actors were not threatening.

In 1943 he fled to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of the war. After the war,  Rademaker began working with filmmakers Vittorio De Sica and Jean Renoir.

6. He Wrote an Original Script of Joyous Eve with his Wife Lili Radesmakers

Most of Rademaker’s films were adapted from novels. Joyous eve was his second film for which he wrote the original script with his wife.

Lili Radesmakers was assistant director on all his films before becoming a director in her own right.

The film was set in the late 1950s, That Joyous Eve which won the silver Bear at Berlin, It dealt with three families on the celebration of St Nicholas Eve a traditional Dutch holiday on Dec 5.

7. His Main Source of Income was Acting

Opnames Voor de speelfilm De Aanslag.Author Fotoburo de Boer. WIKIMEDIA

Being an actor and a director Fons Rademakers worked on various movies.  He worked in The village on the river, In 1958. In 1960, he worked on Makkers Staakt us Wild Geraas.

In 1961, Fon Rademaker  worked on The Knife. Furthermore, In 1963 ,he directed the film Like Two Drops of Water and in 1966,  Fon  directed The Dance of the Heron.  In 1971,  he directed Mira. He worked on the movie Because of the Cats and in 1976 he featured in Max Havelaar.

The same year he also worked on the movie Lifespan. In 1979 he had a role to play in the movie The Judge’s Friend and in 1981 he worked on Vrijdag.   Fons Rademakers worked on The Assault which won the 1986 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Moreover,  In 1989 he worked on the film entitled The Rose Garden.

8. He was a Wealthy and a Financially Stable Man

Premiere film “The dance of the Heron” by Fons Rademakers in Calypso Amsterdam. Author Jack de Nijs. WIKIMEDIA

Fons Rademakers was a well-known actor and director. His network had been growing over the years.

Fon Rademaker  came from the Netherlands and his main source of income was being an actor. He had a net worth of 1 Million to 5 million USD.

9. Fons took over from René Brun as ROOT project leader in 2011

 ROOT was used in all particle physics laboratories in the world as the main data storage and analysis tool. It was the main statistical tool used for the discovery of the Higgs boson.

After the release of the all-new ROOT 6 end of May 2014, Fon Rademaker moved on to become the CERN openlab Chief Technology Officer. Fons was instrumental in identifying new technologies and negotiating with several new companies to join openlab phase V.

 After one and a half years as CTO Fons took up the position of Chief Research Officer in CERN Openlab to focus on Openlab projects, knowledge sharing, IoT and Smart technologies and applying CERN Openlab Technologies in other scientific fields.

Fon Rademaker was leading the development of BioDynaMo which was an agent-based simulator for complex biological systems, medicine development, epidemiology, finance, animal behaviour, and socio-economic issues.

10. He Died out of Self will while in Hospital

At the end of his life, he lived first in Rome and later in the French Thoiry. At the age of 86, he died in a hospital in Geneva of pulmonary emphysema.

He passed away after the life-support machines were switched off at his request.