Stefán Karl Stefánsson facts for kids

Stefán Karl Stefánsson (born 10 July 1975 – died 21 August 2018) was an actor and singer from Iceland. He was most famous for playing the funny bad guy, Robbie Rotten, on the children's TV show LazyTown.

Stefán Karl's Acting Journey

Stefán Karl started his acting career in 1994 when he was 19 years old. He began by working with puppets for television shows. While he was a puppeteer, he also studied acting at the Drama Academy of Iceland. He had his own ideas about acting, which were sometimes different from what his teachers thought.

Later, Stefán Karl was asked by Magnús Scheving, an Icelandic gymnast, to be in a LazyTown play. Magnús Scheving created these plays because he wanted kids in Iceland to be more active and healthy. Stefán Karl explained that Magnús "wanted the kids to get healthier, so he created this musical called LazyTown." In the show, Magnús played Sportacus, a super-fit hero, and Stefán Karl played Robbie Rotten, who loved to relax and sleep.

The musical was very popular. Because of its success, the TV channel Nickelodeon decided to make a TV show based on LazyTown. They even built a special studio in Iceland to film the show. When LazyTown first started in the early 2000s, Stefán Karl didn't know English. But he quickly learned to speak it very well!

His Life Outside of Acting

Stefán Karl lived in Los Angeles with his wife, Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir, and their four children (three daughters and one son). In June 2018, he received a special award called the Order of the Falcon for his work.

His Illness and Passing

In October 2016, Stefán Karl shared that he had been diagnosed with a type of cancer called bile duct cancer. Because he became too sick to work, the main writer for LazyTown, Mark Valenti, started a special fundraiser called a GoFundMe campaign to help with his living costs.

This campaign became very popular, especially when people on YouTube started making funny videos using Stefán Karl's songs from LazyTown. This made the songs "We Are Number One" and "The Mine Song" become famous Internet memes.

In August 2017, Stefán Karl announced that his cancer seemed to be gone, which is called remission. He later explained that while some parts of the cancer had been removed after surgery, he still had the disease.

In March 2018, doctors found that his cancer had returned and could not be removed by surgery. He decided to stop chemotherapy in April 2018 and closed his social media accounts.

Stefán Karl passed away on 21 August 2018, when he was 43 years old. His wife shared that he did not want a funeral. Instead, his body was secretly scattered into a distant ocean.

To remember his amazing career, a place called the Stefán Karl Academy & Center for the Performing Arts was planned to open in Switzerland in 2019.

Stefán Karl's Work

Stefán Karl was involved in many different types of performances. He acted in plays, television shows, and films. He even did voice work for video games! His most famous role was, of course, Robbie Rotten in LazyTown. He also played the Grinch in a musical version of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.

See also

In Spanish: Stefán Karl Stefánsson para niños