When did the first BRAVO appear?
The first issue of BRAVO was published on August 26, 1956 by Kindler & Schiermeyer Verlag, Munich. The editor-in-chief was Peter Boenisch , who also had the idea for BRAVO. BRAVO started out as "The Magazine for Film and Television". It was only during the beat boom in the early to mid-1960s that BRAVO changed into a music magazine.
The cover of the first issue featured the American actress Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), the American actor Richard Widmark (1914–2008) with Donna Reed (1921–1986) and the German actors Peter Carsten (1928–2012) and Karl-Heinz Böhm (1928–2014).
The booklet contained 40 pages and cost 50 pfennigs.
On the back, the US actress Mitzi Gaynor (*1931) was depicted in some dance scenes from the film “Anything Goes”.
Today's star (a very popular series on BRAVO) was Karl-Heinz Böhm. The television program (at that time there was only ARD) from August 25th to 31st was printed on a double page. The magazine started the novel: "Getoreinigt bis aufs Blut". At the same time there was a completed love story: "Du leben in meinen Herzen". As a film and television magazine, it was of course mainly about new films but also about the competition between the two media for the audience's favor. BRAVO reported that the big screen had introduced the Cinemascope 55, while work was feverishly underway on an affordable color system for the small screen.
It should be noted that BRAVO published a reprint of the very first issue for its 40th anniversary in 1996, which is now often offered as the "original". How to distinguish between the two editions is explained in another blog post.