Götz George
Götz George (; 23 July 1938 – 19 June 2016) was a German actor, the son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg detective Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series "Tatort". Early life. George was born in Berlin-Wannsee into a well known acting family: his father, Heinrich George, was a famous film and theater actor, and his mother, Berta Drews, a character actress. George is named after his father's favorite, Imperial Knight Götz von Berlichingen. His father was imprisoned by the Soviets and starved in the Soviet  concentration camp NKVD special camp Nr. 7. George grew up in Berlin with his elder brother Jan and his mother. He attended school in Berlin-Lichterfelde and later attended the Lyzeum Alpinum in Zuoz, Switzerland. Acting career. Stage. George made his stage debut in 1950, performing a role in William Saroyan's "My Heart's in the Highlands". From 1955 to 1958 he also studied at the Berlin UFA-Nachwuchsstudio, though he received the crucial part of his acting education between 1958 and 1963. Following his mother's advice he occasionally played at the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen under the  direction of Heinz Hilpert. After Hilpert's death, George would never join a fixed theater company again, although he did regularly perform on tours and as a guest performer. Hansgünther Heyme signed him in 1972 to the Kölner Schauspielhaus, where George played Martin Luther in Dieter Forte's "Martin Luther und Thomas Münzer". His most important stage achievement, in his own opinion, was the lead role in Büchner's "Danton's Death" during the Salzburg Festival in 1981. In 1986 and 1987, George, together with Eberhard Feik and Helmut Stauss, stage-managed Gogol's "The Government Inspector". Performing in Anton  Chekhov's "Platonov", George went on his last theater tour. Cinema and television. In 1953, he was able to get a small film role next to Romy Schneider in "When the White Lilacs Bloom Again". In the same year he played, as he would often do from then on, next to his mother in Shakespeare's "Richard III". After small movie parts during the 1950s, Götz George broke through with audiences and critics in the film "Jacqueline" (1959). George was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis and the Preis der Filmkritik for his role. In 1962 he received the Bambi Award as the  most popular actor. In the sixties, George got the chance to show that he is able to do more than playing sappy peasants, through roles in movies such as "Kirmes", playing a desperate Wehrmacht deserter, and "Herrenpartie". More often, though, he performed in comedies and action-oriented movies which benefited from his physical presence. He became well known to a broad audience when, during his theater tour in Göttingen, Horst Wendlandt persuaded him to play in one of the Karl May series of films, which he started in 1962 with "Der Schatz im Silbersee". It was originally planned to  give him the lead role, but this plan was abandoned when Lex Barker was hired to play the role of Old Shatterhand, so George played the farmer son Fred Engel. George performed all stunts himself, even in his lead role as sheriff in "Sie nannten ihn Gringo". In the 1970s, he turned primarily to stage roles and to television, including the many episodes of "Der Kommissar", "Tatort", "Derrick", and "The Old Fox" for which he would become famous. It was not until 1977 that he was cast in a prominent role again, playing Franz Lang in "Death Is My Trade , a character modeled after Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höß. George probably had his greatest popular success in the eighties on TV: in Tatort episodes of the WDR, broadcast from 1981 to 1991, he portrayed working-class police officer Horst Schimanski, who eventually became a cult figure in Germany. In 1984 and 1987 he again won the Bambi Award as the most popular actor. The series of Schulz & Schulz" movies, starting in 1989 and dealing with the issue of the German reunification, gave him the opportunity to show his talents as a comedian in a double role, as did the role of  the industry consultant in the series of the same name, which is rather far removed from the roughneck charm of senior commissar Schimanski. Among George's most impressive roles in the nineties were his appearances in the television movie ', in which he portrayed the alleged serial killer and writer Henry Kupfer as a cold, calculating and manipulative intellectual, the movie "Deathmaker (Der Totmacher)", in which he portrayed Fritz Haarmann (The Butcher of Hanover), and in the television movie ' (based on Bubi Scholz), the trauma of an aged, broken boxer. Personal life and death. George was married to Loni von Friedl  from 1966 to 1976; the couple's daughter, Tanja-Nicole, was born in 1967. From 1997, he lived together with Hamburg journalist Marika Ullrich; the couple married in 2014. He died in 2016 at the age of 77 after a short illness.