When Theo Von tells audiences his father was 70 years old at his birth, most people assume it’s a setup for a joke. It wasn’t. Roland von Kurnatowski Sr., born in 1912 Nicaragua and raised on mahogany farms, really did become a father at an age when most men are retired and bouncing grandchildren on their knees.
The searches for Roland von Kurnatowski come almost entirely from people digging into Theo Von’s background. What they find is a house painter from New Orleans who lived 83 years spanning two centuries, multiple marriages, and a journey from Central American forests to Louisiana parishes.
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Born Into Polish Nobility, Raised in Nicaraguan Poverty
Roland Theodor Achilles von Kurnatowski Sr. entered the world on November 29, 1912, in Bluefields, Nicaragua. That name carries weight. The Kurnatowski family descended from Polish szlachta, the noble class that once held land and titles in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
But nobility meant nothing in early 1900s Bluefields. His father, a Polish missionary who had settled near Cabo Gracias a Dios, died around 1918 when Roland was roughly six years old. The boy who carried an aristocratic name spent his youth working mahogany farms on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast, where humidity and hard labor were the only constants.
New Orleans Becomes Home
At age 10 in 1922, Roland von Kurnatowski immigrated to the United States. He settled in New Orleans, where the mix of French, Spanish, and Creole cultures might have felt less foreign to someone from coastal Nicaragua.
The city became his permanent home. In 1939, at age 26, he married Ruth Joan Barlow. By then, he had established himself in the trades as a house painter and contractor. This was honest work, the kind that built postwar New Orleans one coat of paint at a time.
Roland’s social circles included Harry Connick Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who served for three decades and fathered singer Harry Connick Jr. That friendship showed Roland moved through different worlds despite earning his living with brushes and ladders.
A Family Spanning Generations
Roland von Kurnatowski Sr. fathered at least seven children across multiple relationships. His first marriage to Ruth Joan Barlow produced several children, including:
Roland Theodore Achilles von Kurnatowski Jr. (born 1951), who later owned Tipitina’s, the famous New Orleans music venue
Joan von Kurnatowski Hooper, who became an artist
Zefferino “Zeff” von Kurnatowski, whom Theo Von has called his first experience of unconditional love
Other children from various relationships included Thila von Kurnatowski Messina and additional half-siblings that created a complex family tree stretching across decades.
The 38-Year Age Gap
Sometime in the late 1970s, Roland met Gina Capitani, a woman from Wyoming, Illinois. She was 32 years old. He was 70. They had a relationship that produced three children, including Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, born March 19, 1980.
Theo Von has spoken extensively on his podcast about what it meant to have a father who remembered World War I, who listened to Spanish language radio, who drove a Delta 88 with booming speakers. The comedian describes a man who knew how to laugh, who enjoyed simple pleasures, who represented an entirely different era.
The generational gap was real. While other kids had dads coaching Little League, Theo had a father in his late 60s and 70s. He has admitted to feeling embarrassed as a child, wishing his dad looked like other fathers.
Along with Theo, Roland and Gina had two daughters: Rolanda “Ro” Capitani von Kurnatowski, who became an emergency room nurse, and Whittier Capitani von Kurnatowski, who lives in Baton Rouge.
Turning Tragedy Into Purpose
In 1985, Roland von Kurnatowski Sr. lost a young daughter. The details remain private, but the impact was public. He helped co-found a children’s transplant foundation, channeling grief into helping other families facing similar losses.
This wasn’t a man who talked about feelings or processed emotions openly, according to Theo. But the foundation work showed how he responded to heartbreak: by doing something concrete.
Death at 83
On August 18, 1996, Roland Theodor Achilles von Kurnatowski Sr. died in New Orleans from cancer. He was 83 years old. His son Theo was 16.
The Times-Picayune published his obituary on August 21, 1996, on page B-5. He was buried in Metairie Cemetery, where many notable New Orleans residents rest. His headstone lists his birth as November 29, 1912, settling the confusion about whether he was born in 1910 or 1912.
At the funeral, Theo was a teenager who had lost the oldest father in probably every room he ever entered. Years later, he would tell podcast audiences about his regrets: not asking more questions, not spending more time, judging his father for choices he couldn’t understand as a kid.
The Stories That Keep Him Alive
Roland von Kurnatowski Sr. never sought attention. He painted houses. He raised children. He helped sick kids through foundation work. He lived quietly in New Orleans for over seven decades.
But his youngest son became a comedian with millions of podcast listeners. And Theo Von tells stories about his father constantly on “This Past Weekend.” The old man who drank coffee, spoke Spanish, and represented a bygone era has become a recurring character in modern comedy.
Theo talks about his father’s wrinkles, about being embarrassed by his age, about regretting that embarrassment now. He shares the complicated truth of loving someone while wishing they were different, then losing them and wishing you had that time back.
A House Painter’s Long Shadow
The people searching for Roland von Kurnatowski Sr. want to know about Theo Von’s dad. They find a Nicaraguan immigrant who worked blue-collar jobs, who fathered children across five decades, who lived to see the transition from radio to internet.
They find someone born under Nicaraguan skies in 1912 who died in a New Orleans hospital in 1996, his youngest son barely old enough to drive. They find a man whose Polish noble lineage meant far less than his daily work with paint cans and brushes.
Most of all, they find the person behind the punchlines. Because every time Theo Von tells a story about his 70-year-old father, he’s keeping alive a house painter from New Orleans who lived an extraordinarily ordinary life. And there’s something worth remembering in that.
