Kiehl came from a family of actors; his parents H.G. Kiehl and Sophie Sablairolles were stage actors in
The Hague. After several failed attempts at becoming a sailor, a cook and a cigar shop clerk and a disastrous audition at the conservatory in The Hague, Kiehl finally made his stage debut as La Flèche in
Molière's
The Miser on 21 February 1875 at the company of his cousin Valois. Soon after he moved to
Amsterdam, where he joined the company of
Gustave Prot and
Frans P. Kistemaker. There he had his first big successes as an operetta comedian in adaptations of
The Three Musketeers,
Sherlock Holmes and
The Bells of Corneville among others. At Prot & Kistemaker he would frequently team up with
Johannes Philip Kelly and
Bart Kreeft, who became known as the ''Three K's''. Kiehl would go on to join a large number of companies, among which the
Artisschouwburg (where he wrote and directed what might be the most successful original Dutch operetta ever written:
De Parel van Zaandam which garnered rave reviews and was due to be staged in London) the opera department of
Royal Theater Carré and the company of
Louis Bouwmeester in the
Paleis voor Volksvlijt. He remained productive until a very old age and even starred in several feature films, collaborating with internationally acclaimed film directors like
Henry Koster and
Jaap Speyer. == Filmography ==