Besonderes

Donald Haines was born on 9 May 1919 in Seward County, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor, known for Bowery Blitzkrieg (1941), That Gang of Mine (1940) and Kidnapped (1938). He died on 20 February 1943 in North Africa.

Therese Hämer was born on 6 February 1962 in Kassel, Hesse, West Germany. She is an actress and costume designer, known for Fräulein: una fiaba d'inverno (2016), Tatort (1970) and Klingenberg (2011).

Heike Parplies is known for Toni Erdmann (2016), Everyone Else (2009) and Invisible Life (2019).

Tilo von Berlepsch was born on 30 December 1913 in Kassel, Germany. He was an actor, known for Komm nach Wien, ich zeig dir was! (1970), Bürgerkrieg in Russland (1967) and Claus Graf Stauffenberg (1970). He was married to Eike Siegel. He died on 8 April 1991 in Basel, Switzerland.

Erwin Geschonneck was born on 27 December 1906 in Bartenstein/East Prussia (now Poland). In the Twenties, he became a member of the Communistic Party of Germany. After rise of Nazism, he emigrated to Poland, later to Latvia and Czechoslovakia. In the Soviet Union he became a member of a German theatre company. In 1938 he was arrested in Prague and was deported to different concentration camps. Finally he was evacuated from the concentration camp of Neuengamme near Hamburg to Denmark. But the boat, the Cap Arcona, was accidentally bombed by the RAF. The ship sank in the bay of Lübeck, and Geschonneck was one of only a few survivors. In 1945 he played theatre in Hamburg and had his film debut in Helmut Käutner's post-war drama 'In Jenen Tagen'. It was the famous 'Bertholt Brecht' who offered him a contract for his Berlin Ensemble. Geschonneck moved to East Berlin and became a star of the newly founded DEFA, the only production company of the German Democratic Republic.

Hanne Wieder was born on 8 May 1925 in Hannoversch Münden, Germany. She was an actress, known for Rosemary (1958), Marili (1959) and Melissa (1966). She was married to Heinz Schimmelpfennig. She died on 11 May 1990 in Feldafing, Bavaria, Germany.

Lukas Ammann was born on 29 September 1912 in Basel, Switzerland. He was an actor and director, known for Hast noch der Söhne ja...? (1959), Bel-Ami Der Frauenheld von Paris (1955) and Bel Ami (1955). He was married to Liselotte Ebnet, Hedda Ippen and Hertha Heger. He died on 3 May 2017 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

John Charlesworth was born on 12 November 1935 in Hull, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A Christmas Carol (1951), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951) and The Children of the New Forest (1955). He died on 2 April 1960 in Birmingham, England, UK.

Norman Lloyd was born Norman Perlmutter in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Sadie (Horowitz), a housewife and singer, and Max Perlmutter, a furniture store manager. His family was Jewish (from Hungary and Russia). He began his acting career in the theater, first "treading the boards" at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory in New York. Aspiring to work as a classical repertory player, he gradually shed his Brooklyn accent and became a busy stage actor in the 1930s; he next joined the original company of the Orson Welles-John Houseman Mercury Theatre. Lloyd was brought to Hollywood to play a supporting part (albeit the title role) in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). Hitchcock, who later used the actor in Spellbound (1945) and other films, made him an associate producer and a director on TV's long-running Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) (then in its third year). In the course of his eight years on the series, Lloyd became a co-producer (with Joan Harrison) and then executive producer. He has since directed for other series (including the prestigious Omnibus (1952)) and for the stage, produced TV's Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and Journey to the Unknown (1968), and played Dr. Auschlander in TV's acclaimed St. Elsewhere (1982).

Heinrich Gotho was born on 3 May 1872 in Dolyna, Ukraine. He was an actor, known for The Ship of Lost Men (1929), Woman in the Moon (1929) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). He died on 28 August 1938 in Berlin, Germany.

Philipp Manning was born on 23 November 1869 in Lewisham, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Die Tänzerin von Sanssouci (1932), Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (1933) and F. P. 1 Doesn't Answer (1933). He died on 10 April 1951 in Baden, West Germany.

Cyrill Berndt was born on 8 September 1965 in Kassel, Hesse, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Asyl (2004), The Country Doctor (1987) and Bis zum Horizont und weiter (1999).

Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking, hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the age of ten. There, he worked in a series of dead-end jobs before taking up acting, his film debut being in the mediocre comedy The Farmer Goes to Town (1938). He made his stage debut as a comedian's stooge in 1939. Laurence Olivier spotted him and persuaded him to return to Britain to perform classic roles on the stage. Finch then had an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh. Despite being married three times, Finch also had highly-publicized affairs with actresses Kay Kendall and Mai Zetterling. Finch soon switched to film after suffering appalling stage fright. As a screen actor, he won five BAFTA awards and his talent was beyond doubt. Two of his finest roles, the only two for which he also received Oscar nominations, were as the homosexual Jewish doctor in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and as the "mad prophet of the air-waves" in Network (1976). He died a couple of months before being awarded the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Network (1976) and was the first actor to have won the award posthumously.

David Tomlinson is best known for his role as George Banks in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). As a youth he spent a short spell in the guards. He joined the RAF in WW2 where he survived the trauma of a plane crash on his first solo flight due to engine failure, then becoming a flying instructor for the remainder of the war. He began his film career in the pre-war British film Quiet Wedding (1941) and followed that with Leslie Howard's 'Pimpernel' Smith (1941). Altogether he has made over 50 films and on stage he has had long-running successes in many plays including "The Little Hut" with Robert Morley and Roger Moore as his understudy. During the 1930s he understudied Alec Guinness. By the time he went to Hollywood to make Mary Poppins (1964) he was a veteran film and stage actor. David returned to Disney to great success in The Love Bug (1969) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). David was close friends with Errol Flynn, Robert Morley and Peter Sellers. He also spent time with Walt Disney whilst they discussed his role in Mary Poppins (1964). He retired in the early 1980s after an exemplary career on film and stage, and will always be remembered as one of the century's greatest character actors.

Ulrike Folkerts was born on 14 May 1961 in Kassel, Hesse, Germany. She is an actress, known for Tatort (1970), Rose (2016) and Drehkreuz Airport (2001).

Til Kiwe did in real life what several actors played in The Great Escape. Kiwe was a German paratrooper officer, captured in North Africa in 1943, who made several escape attempts from an American POW camp in Colorado. Once, having dyed his uniform with brown vegetable juice, he made it as far as St Louis by train before being recaptured. After the war he became a German actor in movies and TV. He was also an anthropologist who made several expeditions to Polynesia and SouthAmerica.

Bess Flowers was born on 23 November 1898 in Sherman, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for We Faw Down (1928), Born to Be Bad (1950) and Sinister Hands (1932). She was married to William S. Holman and Cullen Tate. She died on 28 July 1984 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood boys by a film director, Carole was signed to a one-picture contract in 1921 when she was 12. The film in question was A Perfect Crime (1921). Although she tried for other acting jobs, she would not be seen onscreen again for four years. She returned to a normal life, going to school and participating in athletics, excelling in track and field. By age 15 she had had enough of school, though, and quit. She joined a theater troupe and played in several stage shows, which were for the most part nothing to write home about. In 1925 she passed a screen test and was signed to a contract with Fox Films. Her first role as a Fox player was Hearts and Spurs (1925), in which she had the lead. Right after that film she appeared in a western called Durand of the Bad Lands (1925). She rounded out 1925 in the comedy Marriage in Transit (1925) (she also appeared in a number of two-reel shorts). In 1926 Carole was seriously injured in an automobile accident that resulted in the left side of her face being scarred. Once she had recovered, Fox canceled her contract. She did find work in a number of shorts during 1928 (13 of them, many for slapstick comedy director Mack Sennett), but did go back for a one-time shot with Fox called Me, Gangster (1928). By now the film industry was moving from the silent era to "talkies". While some stars' careers ended because of heavy accents, poor diction or a voice unsuitable to sound, Carole's light, breezy, sexy voice enabled her to transition smoothly during this period. Her first sound film was High Voltage (1929) at Pathe (her new studio) in 1929. In 1931 she was teamed with William Powell in Man of the World (1931). She and Powell hit it off and soon married, but the marriage didn't work out and they divorced in 1933. No Man of Her Own (1932) put Carole opposite Clark Gable for the first and only time (they married seven years later in 1939). By now she was with Paramount Pictures and was one of its top stars. However, it was Twentieth Century (1934) that showed her true comedic talents and proved to the world what a fine actress she really was. In 1936 Carole received her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress for My Man Godfrey (1936). She was superb as ditzy heiress Irene Bullock. Unfortunately, the coveted award went to Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which also won for Best Picture. Carole was now putting out about one film a year of her own choosing, because she wanted whatever role she picked to be a good one. She was adept at picking just the right part, which wasn't surprising as she was smart enough to see through the good-ol'-boy syndrome of the studio moguls. She commanded and received what was one of the top salaries in the business - at one time it was reported she was making $35,000 a week. She made but one film in 1941, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941). Her last film was in 1942, when she played Maria Tura opposite Jack Benny in To Be or Not to Be (1942). Tragically, she didn't live to see its release. The film was completed in 1941 just at the time the US entered World War II, and was subsequently held back for release until 1942. Meanwhile, Carole went home to Indiana for a war bond rally. On January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother, and 20 other people were flying back to California when the plane went down outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. All aboard perished. The highly acclaimed actress was dead at the age of 33 and few have been able to match her talents since.

Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London to Lilian (Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and his English mother was of German Jewish and mostly English descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College, then worked as a bank clerk until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917, diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of London and New York. He made his first movie in 1914: (The Heroine of Mons (1914)). He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual, and sensitive), a part that he played in many movies which set women to dreaming about him. His first sound movie came out in 1930: Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation of the stage play in which he starred. In Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931) and Smilin' Through (1932), he played the Englishman role to the hilt. His screen persona could perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), a foppish society gentleman.

It was Howard who insisted that Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would do, and usually performed in only two films a year. In 1939, he played the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honor-bound, disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman, in Gone with the Wind (1939).

However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles and made radio broadcasts. He died in 1943, when the KLM plane he was in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.

Holger Obermann was born on 31 August 1936 in Kassel, Germany. He was married to Barbara. He died on 30 October 2021 in Friedrichsdorf, Hesse, Germany.

Martin Rosenstiel was born on 11 December 1923 in Eschwege, Germany. He is an actor and writer, known for Die Gimmicks (1978), Dieser Platonow... (1967) and Es muß nicht immer Kaviar sein (1977).

Jay Benedict was born on 11 April 1951 in Burbank, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Double Team (1997) and The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2013). He was married to Phoebe Scholfield and Vanessa Pereira. He died on 4 April 2020 in London, England, UK.

American actor who had early success as a sunny juvenile, but whose career declined following World War II, in which he was a highly-decorated hero. A native of Los Angeles, Morris played football at Los Angeles Junior College, then worked as a forest ranger. Returning to school, he studied acting at Los Angeles Junior College and at the acclaimed Pasadena Playhouse. A Warner Bros. talent scout spotted him at the Playhouse and he signed with the studio in 1936. Blond and open-faced, he was a perfect type for boy-next-door parts and within a year had made a success in the title role of Kid Galahad (1937). While filming Flight Angels (1940), Morris became interested in flying and became a pilot. With war in the wind, he joined the Naval Reserve and became a Navy flier in 1942, leaving his film career behind for the duration of the war. Assigned to the carrier Essex in the Pacific, Morris shot down seven Japanese planes and contributed to the sinking of five ships. He was awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals. Following the war, Morris returned to films, but his nearly four-year absence had cost him his burgeoning stardom. He continued to topline movies, but the pictures, for the most part, sank in quality. Losing his boyish looks but not demeanor, Morris spent most of the Fifties in low-budget Westerns. A wonderful performance as a weakling in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) might have given impetus to a new career as a character actor, had Morris lived. However, he suffered a massive heart attack while visiting aboard the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard in San Francisco Bay and was pronounced dead after being transported to Oakland Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. He was 45. His last film was not released until two years after his death.

Wolfgang Jansen was born on 3 April 1938 in Free City of Danzig [now Gdansk, Pomorskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Unser Herr Diener (1967), Der Floh im Ohr (1966) and Bratkartoffeln inbegriffen (1967). He died on 9 January 1988 in Hamburg, West Germany.

Patric Doonan was born on 19 April 1926 in Alvaston, Derby, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Project M7 (1953), The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) and Crest of the Wave (1954). He was married to Aud Johansen. He died on 10 March 1958 in Chelsea, London, England, UK.