Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-50 of 358
- Dietrich Hollinderbäumer is a leading German actor and has played a versatile range of characters over his decade-long career. He trained as an actor at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm under the direction of Stig Torslow and Ingmar Bergman. Hollinderbäumer continued his theater work in Vienna, Bonn, Bremen, Zurich, and Hamburg. However, he became known primarily for his numerous television roles. Dietrich Hollinderbäumer lives with his wife in Berlin and on Mallorca. He has two adult children, who also work in the film industry.
- Actor
- Producer
Henning Baum was born on 20 September 1972 in Essen, Germany. He is an actor and producer, known for Der letzte Bulle (2010), Mit Herz und Handschellen (2002) and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver (2018).- Actor
- Composer
Veysel Gelin was born on 3 January 1984 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He is an actor and composer, known for Crooks (2024), Man from Beirut (2019) and Testo (2024).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
First he should take over his father's inheritance. When his parents divorced, Rühmann was just 14 years old. His father then committed suicide. In 1919, after completing his schooling and completing his secondary school leaving certificate, Rühmann took acting lessons. He got his first theater role a year later in the play "Rose Bernd". Shortly afterwards, Rühmann played with Theo Lingen at the Residenztheater in Hanover. In 1923 Rühmann became a member of the Schauspielhaus Munich, from where he moved to the Munich Kammerspiele a year later. During this time he married the actress Maria Herbot. Rühmann got his major roles from 1927 in Berlin with Max Reinhardt. Among others, he played here with Marlene Dietrich and Hans Albers.
In 1930, Rühmann realized his dream and got his pilot's license. The famous film "The Three from the Gas Station" was also made during this time. The film, which was one of the first German sound films, made him the most popular actor in Germany. During the Second World War, Rühmann was indifferent to politics. He tried to come to terms with the rules of National Socialist cultural policy, which benefited his career. He was later blamed for his friendship with high-ranking members of the Nazi regime. In 1938 he divorced his wife. Shortly afterwards he married the actress Hertha Feiler, with whom he also had a son. From 1938 to 1945 Rühmann was a member of the Berlin State Theater under the direction of Gustav Gründgens. During the Second World War, Rühmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a pilot. The funny film "Quax, the Break Pilot" was made, which was specially commissioned from Ufa-Film in 1941 by Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels to keep the people happy.
In 1944, Rühmann appeared in the legendary comedy "Die Feuerzangenbowle", one of the classics that was produced to calm the "home front" during the war years. The film became one of his most famous films. After the end of the war, Rühmann was "denazified" and a temporary ban on playing was lifted. He moved back to Munich with his family and founded his own film company "Comedia" here in 1947. But this didn't bring him any luck; he had several failures. It wasn't until the film "Don't Be Afraid of Big Animals" came out that things started to look up again financially. Rühmann became a respected actor in post-war German cinema. He also had great success with "The Captain of Köpenick" by Carl Zuckmayer, among others. In this film, Rühmann played a shoemaker who took advantage of the confusion of authority in the military hierarchy to put himself in the position of a captain. In the 1950s, successful entertainment films such as "When the Father and the Son", "Charley's Aunt" and "The Pauker" were made.
With the thriller "It Happened in Broad Daylight" he asserted himself in demanding roles. In 1957 Rühmann was awarded the German Film Critics' Prize. Over time, the comedian became a character actor. Rühmann made a film in Hollywood in 1965: "The Ship of Fools" alongside Vivien Leigh. "The Love Carousel" was also created in 1965 with Gert Fröbe and Curd Jürgens. In 1966 the actor received the Federal Cross of Merit and in 1972 the Federal Film Prize. In 1968 Rühmann got his first television role in the film "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. Two years later his wife died. On October 9, 1974, he married Hertha Droemer for the third time. After the film "Fondenes Fressen" was filmed, Rühmann withdrew from acting and only appeared occasionally on television.
During this time he wrote his autobiography "That was it". A final film was released in 1993: "Far away, so close" by Wim Wenders. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded the Golden Camera as "Greatest German Actor of the Century".
Heinz Rühmann died on October 3, 1994 at the age of 92 on Lake Starnberg.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Elisabeth Volkmann was born on 16 March 1936 in Essen, Germany. She was an actress, known for Kein Pardon (1993), Veronika Voss (1982) and Oh, diese Geister (1966). She was married to Eberhard Radisch and Walter Hass. She died on 25 July 2006 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Barbara Nüsse was born on 17 February 1943 in Essen, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tatort (1970), Dark (2017) and Die Kleinbürger (1969).
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ralf Richter was born on 17 August 1957 in Essen, Germany. He is an actor and producer, known for Das Boot (1981), Was nicht passt wird passend gemacht (2003) and Es wäre gut, daß ein Mensch würde umbracht für das Volk (1991).- Actor
- Additional Crew
This actor's chief claim to fame lies in being the most in-vogue screen cop of post-war German cinema. He first established his reputation in the role of the charismatic Inspector Yates in Francis Durbridge's miniseries Das Halstuch (1962), which hit an impressive eighty percent in TV ratings. He continued in the same vein (same part, same crew cut, different names) apprehending villains in a series of Edgar Wallace potboilers with lurid titles evocative of the genre: The Avenger (1960), The Indian Scarf (1963), Coffin from Hong Kong (1964), Again the Ringer (1965) and The Horror of Blackwood Castle (1968), among others. After his contract with Constantin Filmverleih expired, he took a sabbatical from the screen and returned to the stage.
Drache was smitten by the performing arts from childhood (at the age of fourteen, he could recite Goethe's "Faust" by heart). He started acting on stage as an extra in his senior year at high school. Though intended for flight training in the Luftwaffe, he was excused from active military service and permitted to continue his theatrical training in Berlin. Whilst at the Deutsches Theater, he was spotted by Gustaf Gründgens and given a key part in the bizarre comic fantasy "Der Schatten" ("The Shadow", based on a Russian play). This turned out to be a substantial hit. While it did not make him a star, it led to further character roles under the direction of Gründgens in classics like "Danton's Death", "Candida" and "Othello". Following engagements at the Berliner Schillertheater and the Kleine Komödie in Munich, Drache made his first film appearance in 1954. For the next eight years, he alternated youthful romantic leads with more challenging assignments in serious drama (Spy for Germany (1956), The Rest Is Silence (1959)). His archetypal crime fighting image was inaugurated with ""Der Rächer" and cemented with "Das Halstuch". Audiences took a shine to the easy-going approach and quick-witted, often cynical repartee of his screen detectives. Drache also made good use of his distinctively sonorous voice, frequently synchronising for English-speaking stars like Sean Connery, Christopher Lee, Kirk Douglas and Richard Widmark.
On the stage, Drache was able to escape typecasting and occasionally portrayed rather less wholesome characters. The screen, however, rarely permitted him to show his acting range. After a period of relative absence (just five appearances between 1969 and 1985), he returned somewhat reluctantly in familiar guise as the elegant, pin-stripe suited Kriminalhauptkommissar Hans Georg Bülow in TV's top crime-time series Tatort (1970). However, the era for anachronistic gentlemen sleuths had passed and a mixed critical reception prompted Drache to quit the show after just six episodes. After that, he quietly faded from the spotlight and died in Berlin in April 2002 at the age of 79.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Anja Kruse was born on 5 August 1956 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She is an actress, known for Die schöne Wilhelmine (1984), Forsthaus Falkenau (1989) and Barbara Wood - Spiel des Schicksals (2002). She was previously married to Jean-Louis Daniel.- Marlon Kittel was born on 11 December 1983 in Essen, Germany. He is an actor, known for Summer Storm (2004), Die Wache (1994) and Mein Leben & ich (2001).
- Lars Gärtner was born on 20 September 1974 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He is an actor, known for The Experiment (2001), Stromberg (2004) and Der Lehrer (2009). He was previously married to Katharina Schubert.
- Armin Meiwes was born on 1 December 1961 in Essen, Germany. He is an actor, known for The Cannibal Next Door (2023), Most Evil (2006) and Bodyshock (2003).
- Often called the First Lady of German cinema, Ruth Leuwerik was at the peak of her popularity during the 1950's when partnered on screen by the leading male stars of the post-war era: Dieter Borsche, Hannes Messemer, Curd Jürgens and O.W. Fischer. She proved her range by alternating between glamorous damsels and emancipated, resilient heroines in quality productions, invariably directed by master film makers like Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Robert Siodmak or Helmut Käutner.
Young Ruth first became enamoured with acting after watching a movie with Greta Garbo at the age of ten. Julius Martin Leeuwerik, a merchant, was sufficiently prosperous to afford his daughter private acting tuition after she was initially rejected by Berlin's premier acting academy. Undeterred, Leuwerik made her theatrical debut in 1943. The war, however, proved decidedly limiting to further career prospects. Between 1947 and 1949, she was able to gain steady theatrical engagements in Bremen and Lübeck. The following year, she came to the attention of film audiences in the vacation comedy, Dreizehn unter einem Hut (1950). Success was almost immediate and work on the stage henceforth took a back seat to the celluloid medium.
Between 1950 and 1963, Ruth Leuwerik starred in 28 pictures, nearly all of them box-office gold. These ranged from creaky melodramas like Die große Versuchung (1952) and Geliebte Feindin (1955) to prestige pictures like Rosen im Herbst (1955) (as Effie Briest, based on the novel by Theodor Fontane) and Ludwig II: Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955) (as Empress Elisabeth of Austria). Her varied roles encompassed not only the standard Mittel-European aristocratic heroines of the period, but also hardy bourgeois mothers, victims of circumstance and dedicated professional women. She played Maria von Trapp in The Trapp Family (1956) -- long before the musical version with Julie Andrews was conceived -- and showcased her abilities as a serious dramatic actress in the role of a priest's daughter, on trial for murdering her husband, in the title role of A Matter of Minutes (1959). Another moving and sympathetic portrayal was that of the physician Hanna Dietrich, tending to 300 German POW's inside a Siberian concentration camp, in the gritty post-war drama Taiga (1958). This particular performance won her the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival. Arguably the culmination of her career was Liebling der Götter (1960), a biopic of the tragic actress Renate Müller. Voted Germany's most popular actress by Bravo, "the magazine for film and television", Leuwerik also picked up four prestigious Bambi Awards in 1953, 1960, 1961 and 1962. She was the first German actress to participate in a Royal Performance in London in 1960.
From 1964 -- having rejected an offer from Hollywood -- Leuwerik began to withdraw from public life and restrict her appearances to occasional guest spots on television. Unlike other screen divas, her personal life was remarkably devoid of scandal and controversy. Her second husband was the famous German opera singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Ruth Leuwerik died in Munich in January 2016 at the age of 91. - Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Florian Baxmeyer, born in 1974 in Essen (West Germany), studied Sociology at the University of Cologne (West Germany), and has worked as an assistant director before his career starts. Since 2000, he has been attending the Film Studies Program at the University of Hamburg (North Germany). His films include the shorts "Pas de deux" (2000), "Der Verkäufer" (2000), "Benny X" (2001), "Joker-Zu Fuss" (2001), and "Die Rote Jacke" (2002), which won the Student Academy Award in 2003 and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Short Film - Live Action 2004. At present he works on the conversion of the most successful radio play series of Germany "Die drei Fragezeichen und die Geisterinsel" (German title) which will be released in 2006.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Stephan Lacant was born on 9 September 1972 in Essen, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Free Fall (2013), Strange Daughter (2017) and Little India (1996).- Markus Knüfken was born on 18 August 1965 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997), Millennium Mann (2001) and Bang Boom Bang - Ein todsicheres Ding (1999). He is married to Andrea Lion. They have two children. He was previously married to Ellen Ten Damme.
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Theo Angell was born on 9 December 1962 in Essen, Germany. Theo is a cinematographer and assistant director, known for Collision Course (2012), Dire Wolf (2009) and Solar Flare (2008).- Actor
- Producer
Otto Gebühr was born on 29 May 1877 in Kettwig, Essen, Rhine Province, Prussia [now Northrhine-Westphalia], Germany. He was an actor and producer, known for Der große König (1942), Fridericus (1937) and Pretty Miss Schragg (1937). He was married to Doris Krüger and Cornelia Bertha Julius. He died on 14 March 1954 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.- Bernd Sülzer was born on 16 May 1940 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was a writer, known for Um jeden Preis (1994), Außer Kontrolle (2004) and Das Böse (1998). He died on 19 April 2012 in Köln, Germany.
- Gernot Endemann was born on 24 June 1942 in Essen, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Unverbesserlichen (1965), Jan Billbusch (1972) and Mandara (1983). He was married to Sabine Schmidt-Kirchner, Reinhilt Schneider and Jocelyne Boisseau. He died on 29 June 2020 in Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Henning Gronkowski was born in 1988 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is an actor and writer, known for Yung (2018), Teens on Age (2013) and Deadly Emotions (2016).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Diether Krebs was born on 11 August 1947 in Essen, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for Sketch-up (1984), Bang Boom Bang - Ein todsicheres Ding (1999) and Komm in die Wanne, Schätzchen (1971). He was married to Bettina von Leoprechting. He died on 4 January 2000 in Hamburg, Germany.- Fred Aaron Blake was born on 25 October 1968 in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is an actor, known for Look Who's Back (2015), The Ghost Writer (2010) and A Coffee in Berlin (2012).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lady-like Leny Marenbach was Germany's answer to Irene Dunne. She seemed to have little artifice about her and was therefore ideally suited to play gentle, impeccably well-mannered model wives or brave battlers against the forces of adversity. In more emancipated mode, she added a much-needed sparkle to assorted mainstream melodramas and could also occasionally display a deft talent for comedy. Leny already had a distinguished theatrical career under her belt by the time she entered the movies. On stage from 1926, she became an audience favorite at the Schauspielhaus Zürich where she starred in plays by Molières, Shakespeare, Guitry and Molnar. She briefly joined the ensemble of the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna (1934-35) which led directly to an offer from the Czech production company Meissner and a starring role in the German-language film Jana, the Girl from the Bohemian Forest (1935). Stardom was almost instantaneous with her next breakthrough role as Heinz Rühmann's loyal wife in Wenn wir alle Engel wären (1936). The financial success of the picture led to two further pairings with Germany's number one box-office star: Model Husband (1937) and the enjoyably farcical Five Millions Seek an Heir (1938).
Leny showcased her versatility as a dramatic actress in more demanding fare, especially with her dual role in Helmut Käutner's Frau nach Maß (1940) and as the devoted Countess Kollowrat in Friedemann Bach (1941) (a depiction of the dissipated life of Johann Sebastian Bach's eldest son). In the aftermath of World War II, audience tastes in screen entertainments had changed fundamentally and Leny's popularity declined. She managed to secure a short-term contract with East Germany's Defa, but her espionage thriller Geheimakten Solvay (1953) aroused criticism in the West for its blatant propagandist content. With no prospective offers, Leny's film career was all but over. She briefly returned to the stage, did some voice-over work and went on tour with a show in which she recited poems and performed sketches. By the end of the 60's, she had left the limelight, and acting, behind her.- Marie-Luise Marjan was born on 9 August 1940 in Essen, Germany. She is an actress, known for Lindenstraße (1985), Die Vorstadtkrokodile (1977) and Lindenstraße: Finstere Weihnacht (2006).