Dutch postcard by N.V. Int. Filmpers (I.F.P.), Amsterdam, no. 1075. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst. Maria Schell in Rose Bernd/The Sins of Rose Bernd (Wolgang Staudte, 1957).

Pretty, wide-eyed Austrian leading lady Maria Schell (1926-2005) became one of the first film idols to the European postwar generation. With her ‘smile under tears’ she appeared in dozens of German and Austrian popular films, but she also starred in British, French, Italian, and Hollywood productions.

Margarete Schell was born in Vienna in 1926 as the daughter of the Swiss author Ferdinand Hermann Schell and Austrian actress Margarete Schell Noé. She was the older sister of the actors Immy, Carl, and Maximilian Schell. Her family had to escape from the Nazi regime in 1938, and she received dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay for her studies she worked as a secretary. Billed as Gritli Schell, she made her screen debut at 16 in the Swiss-filmed drama Steibruch (Sigfrit Steiner, 1942). It would be six years before she'd appear before the cameras again in Der Engel Mit der Posaune (Karl Hartl, 1948). This Austro-German production was simultaneously filmed in an English-language version, The Angel With the Trumpet (Anthony Bushell, 1950), which brought her to the attention of international filmgoers. In the 1950s Maria often played the sweet and innocent Mädchen in numerous Austrian and German films. She starred opposite Dieter Borsche in popular melodramas like Es kommt ein Tag/A Day Will Come (Rudolf Jugert, 1950) and Dr. Holl (Rolf Hansen, 1951). With O.W. Fischer she formed one of the 'Dream Couples of the German cinema' in romantic melodramas like Bis wir uns wiedersehen/Till We Meet Again (Gustav Ucicky, 1952), Der träumende Mund/Dreaming Lips (Josef von Báky, 1953), and Solange Du da bist/As Long As You're Near Me (Rolf Hansen, 1953). She also starred in British productions like The Magic Box (John Boulting, 1951) with Robert Donat, and The Heart of the Matter (George More O'Ferrall, 1953) opposite Trevor Howard.

In 1954, Maria Schell won a Cannes Film Festival award for her dramatic portrayal of a German nurse imprisoned in wartime Yugoslavia in Die letzte Brücke/The Last Bridge (Helmut Käutner, 1954). Two years later, she claimed a Venice Film Festival prize for her role in Gervaise (René Clément, 1956). In this adaptation of Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir, she played one of her best roles as a hardworking laundress surrounded by drunks. Other important films were Robert Siodmak’s thriller Die Ratten/The Rats (1955), and Luchino Visconti’s romantic Fyodor Dostoyevski adaptation Le Notti bianche/White Nights (1957), with Schell as the young and innocent girl in love with Jean Marais but loved by Marcello Mastroianni. Hollywood called and Maria Schell was contracted to star as Grushenka opposite Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Brooks, 1958), a messy adaptation of another classic novel by Dostoyevsky. This was followed by roles in the Gary Cooper Western The Hanging Tree (Delmer Daves, 1959), the remake of Edna Ferber's Cimarron (Anthony Mann, 1961), and The Mark (Guy Green, 1961), opposite Academy Award nominee Stuart Whitman. Then she returned to Germany for the family drama Das Riesenrad/The Giant Ferris Wheel (Géza von Radványi, 1961), again with O. W. Fischer.

In 1963, dissatisfied with the diminishing value of the characters she was called upon to play, Maria Schell retired. But in 1969 she made a come-back with the witty French comedy Le Diable par la queue/The Devil By The Tail (Philippe de Broca, 1969) opposite Yves Montand. Then followed two horror films by cult director Jesus Franco, Der Heisse Tod/ 99 Women (1969), and Il Trono di fuoco/Throne of the Blood Monster (1970), starring Christopher Lee. Among her later assignments were Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976), Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978), Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo/Just A Gigolo (David Hemmings, 1978) with David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich. On TV she portrayed the mother of Nazi-architect Albert Speer (Rutger Hauer) in Inside the Third Reich (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1992). She also played Mother Maria in the TV sequel to Lilies of the Field called Christmas Lilies of the Field (Ralph Nelson, 1982), and she did guest appearances in popular crime series like Der Kommissar (1969-1975) starring Erik Ode, Kojak (1976) starring Telly Savalas, Derrick (1977-1978), and Tatort (1975-1996). Besides being a film star; Maria Schell appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, at the Salzburg Festival, and she went on provincial tours from 1963. Among the plays she performed were such classics as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, and such modern classics as Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. With her brother, Maximilian Schell Maria only appeared in one film, the thriller The Odessa File (Ronald Neame, 1974). In 2002 Maximilian made a documentary about her called Meine Schwester, Maria/My Sister, Maria, in which he documented how her mental health deteriorated along with her finances during her later years. In 2005 Maria Schell died at age 79 of heart failure in her sleep. She was twice married, first to film director Horst Hächler and later to another film director, Veit Relin. She was the mother of actor Oliver Schell, and of actress Marie-Therese Relin, who is married to Bavarian playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz and has three children. In 1974 Maria Schell was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany's Cross of Merit) and in 1977 the Filmband in Gold for her impressive contributions to the German cinema.

Sources: Stephanie D'Heil (Steffie-line), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, AbsoluteFacts.nl, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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German postcard. Art work: Ole Jensen. Mario Adorf in Ganovenehre (Wolfgang Staudte, 1966). Caption: Mario Adorf as Artisten-Orje.

For over 65 years now, Swiss actor Mario Adorf (1930) is a very active star of the European cinema, known for his Mediterranean looks, his dark oily frizzy hair, and his imposing figure. He started as a talented newcomer in German films of the 1950s, he hammed his way through the 1960s as a villain in Eurowesterns and action pictures, but he is now best known for his roles in some classics of the Junge Deutsche Film (The Young German Cinema) such as Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum (1978) and Lola (1981). He appeared in over 200 films and TV films.

Mario Adorf was born in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1930. He was the illegal son of Dr. Matteo Menniti, an Italian surgeon, and Alice Adorf, a German nurse, and was raised by his mother in Mayen in the Eifel, Germany. He studied at the Universität Mainz and later he studied drama at the famous Otto-Falckenberg-Schule in München (Munich). He was still studying there when he made his film debut as a German soldier in the first installment of the war trilogy 08/15 (1954, Paul May). It was a small part but it didn't go unnoticed and got him new roles in German films, such as a starring part in Das Mädchen Rosemarie/The Girl Rosemary (1958, Rolf Thiele) with Nadja Tiller. His most remarkable role of this period was Bruno Lüdke, the mentally defective serial killer in the masterpiece Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam/The Devil Strikes at Night (1957, Robert Siodmak). It earned him his first prize, the Bundesfilmpreis (German Film Award for the outstanding young actor). Adorf became known in Europe, and particularly in Germany. His films included the psychological thriller Die Schachnovelle/Brainwashed (1960, Gerd Oswald) with Curd Jürgens, and the popular Karl May western Winnetou I/Apache Gold (1963, Harald Reinl), in which he played Santer, the bad guy who shot Winnetou’s sister Ntscho-tschi (Marie Versini). In the early 1960s, Adorf moved to Rome. Spaghetti western aficionados remember him probably best for his role as 'El Diablo' in Gli Specialisti /Drop Them or I'll Shoot (1969, Sergio Corbucci) with Johnny Hallyday. He also appeared in such English language films as Major Dundee (1965, Sam Peckinpah) and the Agatha Christie mystery Ten Little Indians (1965, George Pollock). He later turned down a role as General Mapache in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, which he deeply regrets. At IMDb, Guy Bellinger comments: “His Mediterranean looks, his rugged face, his dark oily frizzy hair, and his volubility made him an ideal villain in European-made westerns, spy or mafia films. These films - made in the 1960’s - were mostly just commercial and Adorf hammed his parts but he did it so brilliantly that he alone made them watchable.”

From the 1970s on, the quality of his films improved and Mario Adorf could lend his remarkable acting talents to more ambitious works such as Il Delitto Matteotti/ The Assassination of Matteotti (1973, Florestano Vancini) in which he was a striking Mussolini. Though he worked steadily through the decade, Adorf did not really come to prominence until he appeared in such major features of Der Junge Deutsche Film as Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum/The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff) and Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum) (1979, Volker Schlöndorff). Mark Deming writes at AllMovie: “Volker Schlöndorff's ambitious and surprisingly accurate screen adaptation of Günter Grass' brilliant, surreal fable of Germany under the influence of the Third Reich”. It was one of the most financially successful German films of the 1970s and won the 1979 Oscar for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) at the 1979 Cannes Film festival. He also worked with Rainer Werner Fassbinder at Lola (1981) featuring Barbara Sukowa. On TV he played a small role in the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Smiley's People (1982, Simon Langton) as a German club owner. In Italy, he was the main protagonist of the Zu Gino TV series (1985), as well as numerous films. He worked with an impressive list of directors, including Wolfgang Staudte, Billy Wilder, John Frankenheimer, and Claude Chabrol. Likewise, he served many a great author, either in the theatre (such as in William Shakespeare’s Othello, or in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire) or the big or small screen (Günther Grass, Heinrich Böll, Arthur Schnitzler, Henry Miller, Joseph Conrad, Maxim Gorky, Patrick Süskind). In the 1990’s he changed his image and became the patriarch in such TV-films as Der grosse Bellheim/The Great Bellheim (Dieter Wedel, 1993). He also made appearances in international films, including Smilla's Sense of Snow (Bille August, 1997). In 1994, he started a singing career with his solo program Al Dente, and he wrote five novels, including the bestsellers 'Der Mäusetöter'(The Mice Killer, 1992) and 'Der Dieb von Trastevere' (The Thief of Trastevere, 1995). In 2005, he published 'Mit einer Nadel bloß' (With just one needle), a memoir about his mother. In 1963, he married Lis Verhoeven. The couple had a child, Stella prior to their divorce. In 1985, he married Monique Faye, with whom he is still married. In 2000, he was honoured with the Bayerischer Filmpreis (Bavarian Film Awards Honorary Award), and a year later with the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz. At 80, Mario Adorf remains very active in German films, television, and theatre. His more recent films are the comedy Die Libelle und das Nashorn/Lonely U (Lola Randl, 2012) with Irm Hermann, the drama Die Erfindung der Liebe/The Invention of Love (Lola Randl, 2013), Der letzte Mentsch/The Last Mentsch (Pierre-Henry Salfati, 2013) with Hannelore Elsner, the comedy Altersglühen - Speed Dating für Senioren (Jan Georg Schütte, 2014) with Senta Berger, the Western Winnetou - Der letzte Kampf/Winnetou - the last battle (Philipp Stölzl, 2016), and the drama Real Fight (Agmet Tas, 2021).

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Tom B. (Westerns all Italiana), marioadorf.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3908/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Star-Foto-Atelier. Charlie Rivel in Akrobat Schööön!/Acrobat O-o-oh! (Wolfgang Staudte, 1943).

Charlie Rivel (1896-1983) was an internationally known Catalan circus clown. He was the star of the Circo Price. Rivel played the lead role in the German film Akrobat Schööön!/Acrobat O-o-oh! (1943), directed by Wolfgang Staudte.

Charlie Rivel was born as Josep Andreu i Laserre in 1896 in Cubelles, Catalonia, when his parents were on tour in this town. He was the son of the circus artists Pere Andreu Pausas (Spanish) and Marie-Louise Laserre (French). Only three years old, he began to perform in the family company directed by his parents and in which his brothers Polo, René, Marcel (Celito), Roger (Rogelio), and his sister Nena also worked, all clowns and comic acrobats. His father owned the Reina Victoria Circus in Barcelona. As children, the siblings performed under the name Los Pepitos. After the death of his sister Nena in a trapeze accident, they became Los Andreu, and finally, together with his brothers Polo and René, he formed the Rivel Trio. He took his artistic first name from Charlie Chaplin whom he encountered first in 1910. Andreu did a parody of Chaplin on the trapeze. In Belgium, he met Chaplin when he won first place in an imitation contest. Each respected the other. Legend has it that Chaplin later asked him: "Is it you who imitate me or I who imitate you?" He later discovered his definitive routine, featuring a chair, a guitar, and a long jersey.

Charlie Rivel appeared in a few films. His film debut was an uncredited appearance in the Spanish film Aurora de esperanza (Antonio Sau Olite, 1937) starring Félix de Pomés. He played the leading role in the German film Akrobat Schööön!/Acrobat O-o-o-oh! (Wolfgang Staudte, 1943) with Clara Tabody and Karl Schönböck. Later he appeared in Spain in El aprendiz de clown (Manuel Esteba, 1967) with Enrique San Francisco. In 1971, he appeared in Federico Fellini's film Clowns. He performed in the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 in Luxembourg. In 1970 he received the Premio Nacional de Teatro (National Theatre Award) and in 1983 the Creu de Sant Jordi (Saint George's Cross), one of the highest civil distinctions awarded in Catalonia (Spain). Rivel was married from 1930 till her death to Carmen Busto Rinke, daughter of the clown Gregorio Busto. She became his representative and artistic advisor and they had four children Paulina, Juanito, Charlie, and Valentino. His second wife was Margarita Camas whom he married in 1982. Charlie Rivel died of a stroke in 1983 in Sant Pere de Ribes, Barcelona, at the age of 87. He is the father of actress and circus princess Pauline Schumann. The Charlie Rivel Hall in Cubelles is a museum dedicated to him and there is also a park dedicated to him in Vigo in the province of Pontevedra, Spain.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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German postcard. Omega Film. Autographed postcard of Alexander Kerst in Ciske - Ein Kind Braucht Liebe (Wolfgang Staudte, 1955), based on the novel by Dutch author Piet Bakker. This was the German version of the parallel made Dutch film Ciske, de rat (Staudte, 1955), situated and shot in the city of Amsterdam (with interiors shot at the Amsterdam Cinetone film studio). Kerst played the sailor Freymuth, Ciske's father. Part of the Dutch cast played in the German version as well, including Kees Brusse as Ciske's teacher Bruis, and young Dick van der Velde as Ciske himself. While the Dutch version became the third-best viewed Dutch film in the Netherlands and won a Silver Lion in Venice, the German version was not a huge success in Germany and remained one of the most unknown films of Staudte.

Alexander Kerst (1924-2010) was an Austrian stage and screen actor.

Alexander Kerst completed his acting studies at the Max Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna, where he studied a. o. was trained by Fred Liewehr. After first engagements at the Vienna Burgtheater and the Volkstheater (Vienna), he came in 1954 via Kassel and Wuppertal to the Munich Kammerspiele and was there from 1957 to 1960 ensemble member. This was followed by further engagements at theater stages in Germany under the directors August Everding, Hans Schweikart, Karl-Heinz Stroux, Peter Beauvais, Hans Lietzau, and Fritz Umgelter, in roles such as Hector in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Templar in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise, or the title roles in Goethe's Urfaust and Götz von Berlichingen at the Götzfestspiele Jagsthausen. In Vienna, he founded the Kleine Theater im Konzerthaus with Helmut Qualtinger and Michael Kehlmann.

Since 1952, Kerst appeared in films, among others Morgengrauen (Daybreak, Viktor Tourjansky 1954) with Hans Stüwe, intended to boost the start of Lufthansa, the war drama Der Stern von Afrika (The Star of Africa, Alfred Weidenmann 1957) with Joachim Hansen and Marianne Koch), Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben (Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever?, Frank Wisbar's 1959 war film on the Battle of Stalingrad), and Mein Schulfreund (Robert Siodmak, 1960) with Heinz Rühmann. From 1960, he mostly worked for television under directors such as Falk Harnack, Rolf von Sydow, Michael Brown, Helmuth Ashley, and Jürgen Roland. Memorable was his lead as the insurance detective Dr. Severin in the series Gewagtes Spiel (1964-1967), while he also acted in episodes of Tatort, Derrick, and Der Alte. In addition, Kerst worked at the radio and at dubbing studios. In 1985 Kerst acted in John Frankenheimer's thriller The Holcroft Covenant, starring Michael Caine.

At the Munich theater stages, Kerst was seen in The Heiress by Henry James with Heidelinde Weis, G.B.Shaw's Dear Liar with Johanna von Koczian, Olympia with Christiane Hörbiger, or Gin Rommee with Maria Becker. In addition to his theatrical and television work, Alexander Kerst devoted time to recitation programs and readings, e.g. evenings with texts by Erich Kästner, Ludwig Thoma, Ovid, Eduard Mörike and Friedrich Schiller, which he performed e.g. for the Bayerischer Rundfunk, the ORF, and the Carl Hanser Verlag. Kerst's last television productions were in 2004 The Patriarch, among others with Iris Berben, Christoph Waltz, Sophie Rois, and Ulrich Noethen, and in 2006 Silver Wedding directed by Matti Geschonneck with Iris Berben, Gisela Schneeberger, Ulrich Noethen, Axel Milberg and Corinna Harfouch. In addition, he lent his distinctive voice as a voice actor e.g. to Martin Landau (Ed Wood), Robert Mitchum (Drive To Hell, Darling!), Yves Montand (Police Python 357) and Fernando Rey (Quintet).

Alexander Kerst died after a long illness on 9 December 2010 in Munich at the age of 86 years. He was the cousin of the Austrian baritone Paul Wolfrum (1943-1990).

Sources: IMDB, German Wikipedia.

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German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg. Photo: Constantin / Allianz / Vogelmann. Horst Frank in Fluchtweg St. Pauli - Großalarm für die Davidswache/Hot Traces of St. Pauli (Wolfgang Staudte, 1971).

German film actor Horst Frank (1929 –1999) appeared in more than 100 films between 1955 and 1999. During the 1960s he was the blond, steely-eyed bad guy of countless Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films.

Horst Bernhard Wilhelm Frank was born in 1929 in Lübeck, Germany, the son of a porcelain painter. After graduation, he completed an apprenticeship as a trader. He then enrolled in the acting class at the Musikhochschule Hamburg (Music Academy Hamburg) but failed his final exams. Nonetheless, he managed to secure an acting position in his home town. For some time after, his work was primarily confined to small parts on stage and in radio. In Baden-Baden, he became a member of the Südwestfunk ensemble and started working for television. He made his film debut as a cynical, cowardly pilot in the West-German war film Der Stern von Afrika/The Star of Africa (Alfred Weidenmann, 1957), portraying the combat career of a World War II Luftwaffe fighter pilot Hans-Joachim Marseille (Joachim Hansen). The film was successful at the German box office. Frank then won a critic's award for his next role as member of a U-Boat crew in the war drama Haie und kleine Fische/Sharks and Little Fish (Frank Wisbar, 1957). Next he played supporting parts in such West-German productions as the crime film Der Greifer/The Copper (Eugen York, 1958) starring Hans Albers, Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958) starring Nadja Tiller, and the war film Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben/Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever (Frank Wisbar, 1959). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: “Of athletic, lithe build and owner of a somewhat cold, hypnotic gaze (with a voice to match), Frank soon found himself typecast to disturbingly good effect as psychotic murderers in German and international productions”. In Italy, he appeared with Massimo Girotti in the drama Lupi nell'abisso/Wolves of the Deep (Silvio Amadio, 1959), and in France with Françoise Arnoul in the war drama La chatte sort ses griffes/The Cat Shows Her Claws (Henri Decoin, 1960) and with Laurent Terzieff in Tu ne tueras point/Thou Shalt Not Kill (Claude Autant-Lara, 1961). From 1961 to 1963 he lived in Tanganyika on his own farm and raised coffee and vegetables. Political turmoil forced him to return to Germany. Frank appeared in several pan-European productions, such as the French-Italian-German crime comedy Les Tontons flingueurs/Crooks in Clover (Georges Lautner, 1963) with Lino Ventura, and the German-French-Italian Eurowestern Die Flußpiraten vom Mississippi/The Pirates of the Mississippi (Jürgen Roland, 1963) starring Hansjörg Felmy and Brad Harris. He was also in the German-French-Italian spy film Die Diamantenholle am Mekong/Mission to Hell (Gianfranco Parolini, 1964) starring Paul Hubschmid. It was one of the first Eurospy productions and a box office hit. In Italy, he proved to be an ideal henchman in the Spaghetti Western Le pistole non discutono/Bullets Don't Argue (Mario Caiano, 1964). The film was produced by Jolly Film back to back with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), but with a more expensive budget. The producer expected a greater success than Leone's film, especially because at the time lead actor Rod Cameron was better known than Clint Eastwood. Frank appeared in several other Eurowesterns and Eurospy films. Noist of them are mediocre, but interesting is the Spaghetti Western Preparati la bara!/Django, Prepare a Coffin (Ferdinando Baldi, 1968) with Terence Hill in the title role. Django was previously played by Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci's original 1966 Django. Django, Prepare a Coffin is unique among the plethora of films which capitalized on Corbucci's hit in that it is not only a semi-official, legitimate follow-up, but was also originally meant to star Franco Nero. Curious is also Quella sporca storia nel West/Johnny Hamlet (Enzo G. Castellari, 1968), a Spaghetti Western version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

During the 1970s, Horst Frank often played of ruthless killers and impassive assassins in Italian genre films, including the Giallo Il gatto a nove ode/The Cat o' Nine Tails (Dario Argento, 1971). This is the middle entry in Argento's so-called Animal Trilogy along with L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo/The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and 4 mosche di velluto grigio/Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972). Frank also worked regularly in Germany. An example is the television film Carlos (1971) for which director Hans W. Geissendorfer transplanted the story of Friedrich Schiller's play Don Carlos from 16th century Spain to a 1915 American Western style environment. From 1973 on, Frank frequently worked in the theatre, touring with his own productions of plays by Noel Coward and Peter Ustinov, and often worked for German television. He guest-starred in several episodes of the popular Krimi series Der Kommissar, Tatort and Derrick, and also starred in the miniseries Timm Thaler/The Legend of Tim Tyler: The Boy Who Lost His Laugh (Sigi Rothemund, 1979). Incidentally he appeared in interesting films such as the Science-Fiction film Operation Ganymed (Rainer Erler, 1977) about a spaceship which returns to Earth after several years of space exploration and finds it desolate. Another highlight was the TV film Wege in der Nacht/Ways in the Night (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1979) with Mathieu Carrière. In addition to his screen acting, Frank lent his voice to dubbing work for fellow tough guys like Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine and Chuck Connors. On the radio, he voiced Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. I.S. Mowis: “Behind the menacing heavy, there was a family man and author of poems and chansons. (…) Likely because of his lack of work in major American or British productions, Frank never quite achieved the international recognition he undoubtedly deserved.” Among his last screen credits were the romanticized TV biography Catherine the Great (Marvin J. Chomsky, John Goldsmith, 1996) with Catherine Zeta-Jones as Empress Catherine II, and Die Menschen sind kalt/People are cold (Andreas Dorau, 1998). In 1999, Horst Frank quite suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage, just short of his 70th birthday. He had a son from his first marriage and a daughter named Désirée from his second marriage to actress Chariklia Baxevanos. From 1979 till his death, he was married to actress Brigitte Kollecker.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

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