Hardy Krueger died at the age of 93

Last modified: Thursday 20 January 2022 at 12:57 p.m

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Hardy Krueger in family secrets – love, guilt and death (c) ZDF

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The German film actor Hardy Krüger is dead. He died at the age of 93 in his adopted home of California. He will remain unforgotten for his appearances in classics like One came through, Hatari! and The Flight of the Phoenix.

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Hardy Krüger is dead. According to his Hamburg agency, he died “suddenly and unexpected‘ yesterday, Wednesday, January 19, at his home in Palm Springs, California. He was born on April 12, 1928 in the working-class district of Wedding in Berlin, where he experienced the Nazi era as a child. Accordingly, he made his first cinema experiences as a youth in the National Socialist propaganda machine. Later, however, Krüger became an international film star, who, for example, appeared alongside gunslinger John Wayne in the film “Danger!“ was allowed to occur. But the actor leaves many more unforgettable roles.

So he starred in the British war drama “One got through“ 1957 the German Air Force officer Franz von Werra. “The Flight of the Phoenix‘ had Krüger perform alongside James Stewart and Richard Attenborough in 1965. In 1977 it was also this Attenborough who, in “The Arnhem Bridge‘ staged, another war film. Here Krüger played only a smaller role, but together with the likes of James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Anthony Hopkins. A year later, Krüger was in the film “The wild geese are coming‘ alongside Richard Burton and Roger Moore (so he shared the screen with two Bond actors).

Another highlight in Krüger’s impressive career was his participation in the Kubrick classic “Barry Lyndon“ in 1975. The German actor, who was hardly interested in the roles in his home country, celebrated many of his first successes in France. For example, in 1962 he played in “Sundays with Sybill‘ as a Vietnam War veteran. The work won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Due to his blond hair and blue eyes, Krüger was often cast in Nazi roles in Great Britain and America, later he was able to increasingly free himself from it.

As mentioned at the beginning, Krüger experienced the Nazi era first-hand. He also wrote about it in his autobiography in 2016. At the age of 16 he had to go to war and ended up in American captivity. This is said to have saved his life, however, because the Germans had just sentenced him to death for disobeying orders. Krüger was active against right-wing radicalism into old age by reporting his own experiences and warning of a possible repetition of history.

Krüger was married three times in his life: from 1950 to 1964 to the actress Renate Densow, from 1964 to 1977 to the Italian painter Francesca Marazzi and from 1978 to his death to the American Anita Park, with whom he spent the last few years between California and Hamburg commuted. He survives three children: Christiane, Malaika and Hardy Krüger Junior, himself an actor. Incidentally, the deceased made his last appearance in front of the camera in 2011 in the ZDF television film “Family secrets – love, guilt and death” there.

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