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German actor (1938–2016)

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.

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.

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.

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 Morlock (TV series) 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 The Sandman (1995 film), 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.

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.

When the White Lilacs Bloom Again, 1953 Klaus
The Great Test, 1954 Peter Behrend
Old Barge, Young Love (Alter Kahn und junge Liebe Sonne über den Seen), 1957 Kalle Borchert
de, 1958 Eberhard Römer
Jacqueline, 1959 Gustav Bäumler
The Fair (Kirmes), 1960 Robert Mertens
Carnival Confession, 1960 Clemens
, 1961 Peter Joost
, 1961 Hein Kersten
Our House in Cameroon, 1961 Georg Ambrock
Her Most Beautiful Day, 1962 Adam Kowalski
Das Mädchen und der Staatsanwalt, 1962 Jochen Rehbert
Treasure of the Silver Lake (Der Schatz im Silbersee), 1962 Fred Engel
, 1962 Chris Kronberger
Love Has to Be Learned, 1963 Hansgeorg Lehmbruck
Man and Beast (Mensch und Bestie), 1963 Franz
Destination Death (Herrenpartie), 1964 Herbert Hackländer
Waiting Room to the Beyond (Wartezimmer zum Jenseits), 1964 Don Micklem
Among Vultures (Unter Geiern), 1964 Martin Baumann Jr.
A Holiday with Piroschka, 1965 Thomas Laurends
Man Called Gringo (Sie nannten ihn Gringo), 1965 Mace Carson
Winnetou and the Crossbreed, 1966 Jeff Brown
The Long Day of Inspector Blomfield, 1968 Eddie Blomfield
The Blood of Fu Manchu, 1968 Carl Jansen
Commandos, 1968 Oberleutnant Rudi
Wind from the East, 1970 Soldier
Death is My Trade, 1977 Franz Lang (based on Rudolf Höss)
Abwärts, 1984 Jörg
On the Killer's Track, 1985 Horst Schimanski
The Crack Connection, 1987 Horst Schimanski
The Cat, 1988 Probek
The Break (1989 film), 1989 Walter Graf
Blue Eyed (1989 film), 1989 Johann Neudorf
Schtonk!, 1992 Hermann Willié
, 1993 Bruno
Heaven or Bust, 1995 Robot Max
Deathmaker (Der Totmacher) 1995 Fritz Haarmann
Rossini (1997 film), 1997 Uhu Zigeuner
The Trio (film), 1998 Zobel
Solo for Clarinet, 1998 Bernie Kominka
After the Truth (Nichts als die Wahrheit), 1999 Dr. Mengele
Viktor Vogel – Commercial Man, 2001 Eddie Kaminsky
Gott ist tot, 2003 Heinrich Lutter
, 2006 Jost
, 2009 Schlomo Herzl
Zettl (film), 2012 Chancellor Olli Ebert