Kartolo

Kartolo
Kartolo and his double bass, circa 1941
Born	Yogyakarta, Dutch East Indies
Died	18 January 1949 Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Occupation	Actor, songwriter
Years active	1930s–1948
Notable work	Terang Boelan

Raden Mas Kartolo (died 18 January 1949) was an Indonesian actor and songwriter. Born in Yogyakarta to a noble family, he entered the theatre and married the actress Roekiah around 1933. The two, living in Batavia (now Jakarta) acted in numerous movies together, starting with the 1938 hit Terang Boelan. However, Roekiah was always cast with other actors as her romantic interest. After Roekiah died in 1945, Kartolo brought the family to Yogyakarta and worked with Radio Republik Indonesia until his death. One of his sons, Rachmat Kartolo, went on to be an actor in the 1960s and 1970s.

Kartolo was born in Yogyakarta, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), to a family of noble descent. Around 1933, while a member of the Palestina touring troupe, he met his future wife Roekiah, a stage actress and singer of keroncong music (traditional music with Portuguese influences) in the Batavia (modern-day Jakarta) area. After leaving Palestina, in 1934 they toured in Singapore with the Faroka troupe.

In 1937 Kartolo made his first film appearance as a supporting character and comedic relief in Albert Balink's Terang Boelan (Full Moon). Roekiah starred alongside Rd. Mochtar; the two played young lovers. Terang Boelan was a commercial success, drawing over 200,000 Straits dollars during its international release in British Malaya. As Algemeen Nederlandsch Indisch Filmsyndicaat, which had produced Terang Boelan, stopped its work on feature films, Kartolo and many other cast and crew members migrated to Tan's Film. In this time, Kartolo and Roekiah established the short-lived Terang Boelan Troupe, which saw another tour to Singapore.