Image attribution: Schrapers
German actor Götz George was born on the 23rd July 1938 in Berlin and died on the 19th June 2016 in Hamburg.
His acting career started off on stage and with small film roles until in 1981 he became Horst Schimanski in Tatort. Tatort is the longest-running German TV drama, showing feature-length episodes with different actors taken the roles as the chief inspector. The series is a collection of different police stories where different police teams each solve crimes in their respective city. (Wikipedia).
Götz George was Hauptkommisar Horst Schimanski from 1981 to 1991. There are many videos on YouTube, just search for Schimanski.
The following video is a documentary from 2000 where Götz George is talking about his (for 1981 very controversial) role as Schimanski. It might whet your appetite to watch one of the films!
Götz George has been in many films but for me he will always be Schimanski with his jacket, which even nowadays is still called ‘Schimanski-Jacke’ (just google it) and his favorite quote: “Scheiße!”
Have you ever seen a film with Götz George?
He’s the hero in one of the Rialto Edgar Wallace ‘krimi’ movies, Wartezimmer zum Jenseits, although it’s actually based on a James Hadley Chase novel. It’s more of a Euro-spy movie than a regular krimi. He’s very good. I was sure that I’d seen him in supporting roles in other krimis, but I can’t find any other credits for that series.
I didn’t know he was in an Edgar Wallace film! I’ve mainly seen the Tatort films and a few he did after that.
It doesn’t really feel like an Edgar Wallace film, although it has many of the regulars in the supporting cast. I’ve got the Edgar Wallace DVD Gesamtedition, and there are one or two movies that seem to be included more because it’s the same studio and vaguely similar subjects than anything else. It’s actually one of the best films!
I’ll look out for it.
Yes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as a villain.
He’s in 3 or 4 of the Winnetou westerns from the 1960s, usually playing an ally of the main hero (he was apparently going to be one of the leads in the first one, but then they cast an American ex-star, Lex Barker)
He goes undercover in one western, and pretends to be a villain. That’s as close as I’ve seen him as a bad guy. It’s not exactly his greatest performance. He comes across like Captain Kirk after a few too many schnapps. (I think he was told to ham it up a bit for these films, to create a contrast to the quite serious leads – if so, he really went for it!)
Oh, the Winnetou films! How could I forget about them! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, he was in some of them, too.