Trivia

Frank Dingenen told the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: "An American channel wanted me to collaborate on an American version of 'Meester hij begint weer'. I decided to stay in Flanders. If you can reach 3 million Flemish people, should you be so ambitious as to want to reach 80 million people? Moreover, in America I was only allowed to write, not act. Acting is my first love.".

Frank Dingenen started his career on the radio program Het Genootschap van Julien Put on Sunday mornings, with his character "Frans Dingemans".

He had his big breakthrough as teacher André Buys in the humorous television series "Meester, hij begint weer! "on the public Flemish broadcaster BRT. At the BRT he also became a panel member of the comedy quiz "De drie wijzen".

He also had success with the song 'Liever Armand Pien' (based on the Billy Joel song For the longest time), about his nostalgia for the time when the first Flemish television weatherman Armand Pien larded his TV weather reports with humor. These songs appeared in 1989 together with a few other songs on the LP "Alle kanten uit!.".

Frank Dingenen was a Flemish actor, presenter, columnist, singer and writer.

From January 2014 to August 2015, Frank was editor-in-chief of an independent online magazine, after which he retired.

In 1988 he scored a music hit with the humorous single "Allez Maurice", a song about a cyclist who always finished second.

He launched many famous Flemish people, including Bart De Pauw, Jacques Vermeire, Michaël Pas, Werner De Smedt, Danny Timmermans, Jo De Poorter and Niels William.

From 1990 onwards he presented 'Videodinges' (the Flemish version of America's Funniest Home Videos) on the Flemish channel VTM, a programme in which all kinds of amateur recordings of accidents and falls were shown.

Dingenen could be called a creative jack-of-all-trades, with his witty quips, comic series, songs and characters such as schoolmaster Buys.

In 2008 he started writing columns for Wieper Magazine, a free press medium that appears in the northern edge of Flemish Brabant. In a playful way he addressed everything that concerned him, including society, the (incorrect) rumours about him and growing older. Due to the enthusiastic reactions to this, fifty columns were bundled into a book, which was published at the end of May 2013 under the title Wat schaft de Borst Vandaag? by publisher Bola Editions.

At the end of the 1990s, Dingenen went to work in the office of Flemish Minister of Culture Bert Anciaux.

At the age of 28 he was diagnosed with a melanoma on his cheek (skin cancer) with metastases to the lymph nodes, and in the early 2000s he survived a heart attack. He ultimately died with vocal cord cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2016.

Since 2020, Dingenen has been living in an assisted living home in Asse to combat loneliness and continue living independently. "I can work there as an animator. Then I have work and social contact," he told a journalist from the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.

Dingenen initially has a career as a ware houseman and eyeglass salesman, but turns out to have a talent for comedy. He can develop that talent when he gets the chance in Julien Put's radio program 'Het genootschap' as 'Frans Dingemans'.

With his TV series Master he starts again he also won numerous foreign awards. Once the series ended up for two American stations, of which ABC was one.

No one discovered and launched more talent on Flemish TV than Frank Dingenen.

He was cured of skin cancer at a young age, and survived a heart attack in the early 2000s. In recent years, he had vocal cord cancer. The disease affected his voice.

He spent the last years of his life in an assisted living facility in Asse, where he was active as an animator.

In 1991 he scored a hit with the then unknown singer Niels William (founder and first manager of the Flemish girl group K3) with "Dat goed gevoel".

In 1973 Frank Dingenen received the Will Ferdy Prize for young Flemish talent.