Герт Фрёбе: Неміс актерінің өмірі мен мансабы

German actor (1913–1988)

Karl Gerhart Fröbe (25 February 1913 – 5 September 1988), known as Gert Fröbe , was a German actor. Considered one of the most important character actors in his country's cinema during his lifetime, he became an international star after portraying the titular villain Auric Goldfinger in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. He subsequently played such roles as Baron Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), General Dietrich von Choltitz in Is Paris Burning? and Colonel Manfred von Holstein in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Fröbe was a three time German Film Award nominee, twice for Best Leading Actor and once for Best Supporting Actor. In 1978, he won an honorary award for "outstanding individual contributions to the German cinema over the years."

Fröbe was born in Oberplanitz, today part of Zwickau. He was initially a violinist, but he abandoned it for Kabarett and theatre work. He joined the Nazi Party in 1929 at the age of 16 and left in 1937, before the outbreak of the Second World War. After his party membership became known after the war, Israel banned Fröbe's films until Mario Blumenau, a Jewish survivor, revealed just eight weeks later that his life and his mother's were probably saved when Fröbe hid them from the Nazis in his basement. In September 1944, theatres in Germany were closed down and Fröbe was drafted into the German Army, where he served until the end of the war. He was cast as the villain in the Swiss West German Spanish film Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight, 1958), with the original screenplay written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. His role as a serial killer of children drew the attention of the producers of the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964) and he was chosen to play one of the best remembered villains of the series, gold tycoon Auric Goldfinger. He later remarked, "The ridiculous thing is that since I played Goldfinger in the James Bond film there are some people who still insist on seeing me as a cold, ruthless villain – a man without laughs." Fröbe made several appearances in all star casts in the 1960s, including the films The Longest Day (1962), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966),Triple Cross (1966), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and Monte Carlo or Bust (1969). During the 1980s, Fröbe was a spokesman in Mercedes Benz W123 commercials, helping to promote the coupé and the sedan.