# Jürgen Prochnow

Jürgen Prochnow (German pronunciation: ; born 10 June 1941) is a German actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Commander "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film Das Boot.
He is also known for his roles in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), Dune (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The English Patient (1996), Air Force One (1997), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and for playing Sergei Bazhaev on the eighth season of 24 (2010). He is a Goldene Kamera, Bavarian Film Awards, and Bambi Award winner.

## Early life

Prochnow was born on 10 June 1941 in Berlin in Germany. He was brought up in Düsseldorf. His father was an engineer.

## Career

Prochnow portrayed the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Commander "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film Das Boot. He starred in the World War II drama Forbidden (1985), which earned a German Film Award nomination for Outstanding Feature Film. He had a significant supporting role in The Seventh Sign (1988).
Prochnow portrayed Arnold Schwarzenegger in See Arnold Run, a 2005 film about the actor's political career in California. He played Commander Paul Gerald in Wing Commander (1999). He was the main antagonist in the Broken Lizard film, Beerfest (2006).
Prochnow dubbed Sylvester Stallone's voice in the German version of Rocky (1976) and Rocky II (1979), as well as F.I.S.T and Paradise Alley (both 1978). He later acted alongside Stallone in the 1995 movie Judge Dredd. After the retirement of Stallone's long-time voice actor Thomas Danneberg, Prochnow assumed this job in 2018 with Creed II. He usually also dubs his own roles in English-language productions.
Prochnow and his older brother, Dieter [de] appeared in The Man Inside (1990), in which Jürgen played the leading role and Dieter a supporting role.
In 1996, he was a member of the jury at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.

## Personal life

In the early 1980s, Prochnow was in a relationship with Austrian actress Antonia Reininghaus [de], who fatally poisoned their 7-year-old daughter, Johanna, in 1987. In 1982, he married actor Jürgen Goslar's daughter, Isabel Goslar, with whom he has two children: a daughter, Mona, and a son, Roman. The couple divorced in 1997. From 2004 until the divorce in 2014, he was married to Birgit Stein [de], a German actress and screenwriter. Stein died in August 2018 in a motorcycle accident in Kanab, Utah. Since 2015, he has been married to actress Verena Wengler.
Prochnow used to divide his time between Los Angeles and Munich. He received U.S. citizenship in 2004. In 2017, he announced that he had sold his house in Brentwood, Los Angeles, and would be moving to Berlin.

## Awards

* 1985 Bavarian Film Awards: Best Actor

## Filmography
### Film

| Year | Title | Role |
| 1972 | Zoff | Joky |
| 1972 | The Merchant of Four Seasons | Mann am Stammtisch / Man at the Meeting Table (uncredited) |
| 1973 | The Tenderness of Wolves | Hehler |
| 1974 | Die Verrohung des Franz Blum [de] | Franz Blum |
| 1974 | One or the Other of Us | Bernd Ziegenhals |
| 1975 | The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum | Ludwig Götten |
| 1977 | Die Konsequenz (The Consequence) | Martin Kurath |
| 1977 | Operation Ganymed [de] (1977) | Oss |
| 1980 | As Far as the Eye Sees [de] | Alexander Späh |
| 1981 | Das Boot (“The Boat”) | Commander (“Der Alte”) of U96 |
| 1982 | War and Peace | Kevin |
| 1983 | The Keep | Captain Klaus Woermann |
| 1984 | Dune | Duke Leto Atreides |
| 1984 | Forbidden | Fritz Friedländer |
| 1985 | The Cop and the Girl [de] | The Cop |
| 1986 | Killing Cars [de] | Ralph Korda |
| 1987 | Terminus | Sir / Doctor / Yellow Truck's Driver |
| 1987 | Des Teufels Paradies [de] (Devil's Paradise) | Escher |
| 1987 | Beverly Hills Cop II | Maxwell Dent |
| 1988 | The Seventh Sign | David Bannon |
| 1989 | A Dry White Season | Captain Stolz |
| 1990 | The Fourth War | Col. Valachev |
| 1990 | Kill Cruise | The Skipper |
| 1990 | The Man Inside | Günter Wallraff |
| 1990 | The Schoolmaster | Rozinsky |
| 1991 | Robin Hood | Sir Miles Folcanet |
| 1992 | Hurricane Smith | Charlie Dowd |
| 1992 | Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me | Woodsman |
| 1992 | Interceptor | Phillips |
| 1993 | Body of Evidence | Doctor Alan Paley |
| 1993 | The Lucona Affair [de] | Hans Strasser |
| 1993 | The Last Border | Duke |
| 1993 | Die Wildnis | Brenner |
| 1994 | Trigger Fast | Jack Neumann |
| 1994 | In the Mouth of Madness | Sutter Cane |
| 1995 | Judge Dredd | Judge Griffin |
| 1996 | The English Patient | Major Muller |
| 1997 | DNA | Dr. Carl Wessinger |
| 1997 | Air Force One | General Ivan Radek |
| 1998 | The Replacement Killers | Michael Kogan |
| 1998 | China Dream | Paul Konen |
| 1998 | Schuldig | |
| 1999 | The Fall | József Kovács |
| 1999 | Wing Commander | Cdr. Paul Gerald |
| 1999 | Youri | |
| 2000 | Gunblast Vodka [fr] | Sacha Roublev |
| 2000 | The Last Stop | Fritz |
| 2001 | Jack the Dog | Klaus |
| 2001 | The Elite | Avi |
| 2001 | Last Run | Andrus Bukarin |
| 2001 | Ripper | Detective Kelso |
| 2001 | Dark Asylum | Dr. Fallon |
| 2002 | Heart of America | Harold Lewis |
| 2002 | Checkpoint | |
| 2003 | House of the Dead | Capitain Victor Kirk |
| 2003 | The Poet [fr] | Vashon |
| 2003 | Baltic Storm | Erik Westermark |
| 2006 | Chain Reaction [de] | |
| 2006 | The Celestine Prophecy | Jensen |
| 2006 | The Da Vinci Code | Andre Vernet |
| 2006 | Beerfest | Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen |
| 2006 | Schroeder's Wonderful World [de] | John Gregory |
| 2007 | Primeval | Jacob Krieg |
| 2007 | Nanking | John Rabe |
| 2008 | La Conjura de El Escorial | Espinosa |
| 2008 | Merlin and the War of the Dragons | The Mage |
| 2009 | Oko (2009), | Mr. Hooked |
| 2010 | Sinners & Saints | Mr. Rhykin |
| 2012 | Die Schuld der Erben | Kurt Hanson |
| 2013 | Ein schmaler Grat | Uwe Wolfmann |
| 2013 | Company of Heroes | Luca Gruenewald |
| 2013 | Ohne Gnade! | Helmutchen |
| 2013 | Die Kinder meiner Tochter | Ernst Blessing |
| 2014 | Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces | Woodsman |
| 2015 | Hitman: Agent 47 | Tobias |
| 2015 | Remember | Rudy Kurlander No. 4 |
| 2015 | The Dark Side of the Moon [de] | Pius Ott |
| 2016 | Interference | Herr Ryser |
| 2017 | Old Agent Men [de] | Kern |
| 2017 | Leanders letzte Reise | Eduard Leander |
| 2017 | Damascus Cover | Franz Ludin |
| 2017 | Dengler [de] | Dr. Schweikert |
| 2019 | A Hidden Life | Major Schlegel (uncredited) |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role |
| 1972 | Shot on Command – The Sass Brothers, Once Berlin's Big Crooks | Franz Sass |
| 1973 | Tatort: Jagdrevier [de] | Dieter Brodschella |
| 1976 | Hans im Glück [de] | Hans Schmidtke |
| 1977 | Tatort: Das Mädchen von gegenüber | Klaus Linder |
| 1983 | Love Is Forever | General Siegfried Kaplan |
| 1992 | Jewels | Joachim von Mannheim |
| 1993 | The Fire Next Time | Larry Richter |
| 1993 | Evelyn Hamanns Geschichten aus dem Leben [de] | |
| 1994 | Lie Down with Lions | Marteau |
| 1994 | Guns of Honor | Jack Neumann |
| 1994 | Aventures dans le Grand Nord | Simon McQuarie |
| 1995 | Tödliche Wahl [de] | Alex Bronner |
| 1995 | Fesseln | Guenther |
| 1996 | Sorellina e il principe del sogno [it] | Kurdok |
| 1996 | On Dangerous Ground | Carl Morgan |
| 1996 | The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century | Kaiser Wilhelm II |
| 1997 | The Cry of Love [de] | Holger |
| 1998 | The Human Bomb | Gerhardt Dach |
| 1999 | Esther | Haman |
| 1999 | The Blond Baboon | Jan Vleuten |
| 1999 | Heaven's Fire | Quentin Darby |
| 2000 | Poison [de; blonde Biest – Wenn Mutterliebe blind macht] | Carl Krieger |
| 2000 | Padre Pio: Miracle Man | Visitatore / The Inquisitor |
| 2000 | Final Ascent | Paul |
| 2002 | Davon stirbt man nicht | Everett Burns |
| 2004 | Julie, chevalier de Maupin | Baron de Hengen |
| 2005 | See Arnold Run | Arnold Schwarzenegger |
| 2007 | Ohne einander | Ernest |
| 2007 | Ein Fall für zwei | KHK Max Gerber |
| 2010 | 24 (2010) | Sergei Bazhaev |
| 2010 | Spear of Destiny [de] | Baron von Hahn |
| 2010 | Tatort: Schlafende Hunde [de] | Hans Rodenburg |
| 2010 | Amigo | Fredo Kovacs |
| 2010-2014 | NCIS: Los Angeles | Mattias Draeger |
| 2010 | Nachtschicht [de] | Friedrich Otto Winterstein |
| 2012 | Luck | Racetrack Owner |
| 2016 | Tatort: Borowski und das verlorene Mädchen [de] | Kesting |
| 2017 | Dengler [de] | Dr. Schweikert |
| 2018 | Lore | Andreas Gruber |

### Video games

| Year | Title | Role |
| 1996 | Privateer 2: The Darkening (video game) | Xavier Shondi |
| 2008 | Dark Sector (video game) | Yargo Mensik (voice) |
| 2008 | Hellboy: The Science of Evil (video game) | Herman von Klempt (voice) |

## Audiobooks (excerpt)

* 2008: Frank Herbert: Dune: Der Wüstenplanet (together with Simon Jäger and Marianne Rosenberg), publisher: Lübbe Audio, ISBN 978-3-7857-3584-8
* 2013: Andreas Eschbach: Quantenmüll, publisher: Lübbe Audio (Audible)
* 2017: Andreas Eschbach: Eine unberührte Welt (together with Simon Jäger, Yara Blümel and Nicole Engeln), publisher: Lübbe Audio, ISBN 978-3785754979