About director Rolf Olsen

Rolf Olsen was a multi-talented film director. Born Rudolf Knoblich in Vienna on December 26, 1919, this all-rounder worked as a screenwriter, actor and director during his long and successful film career. For many films he always did this simultaneously. In this film, too, he wrote the screenplay, directed and also acted in the role of a coroner. Rolf Olsen was a workaholic! He worked on about 100 films and television productions from 1947 to 1990. Olsen was a master of all genres. Whether comedy, drama, crime or horror, Olsen could do it all. Rolf Olsen succumbed to cancer in Starnberg on April 3, 1998.

Filmography (excerpt)

About Curd Jürgens

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was born on December 13, 1915 in Solln near Munich. He was a German theater and film actor, with French roots on his mother’s side. He grew up in Berlin. Curd Jürgens worked as a journalist after graduating from school and attended an acting school on the side. In 1935 he presented himself at UFA and was promptly hired. During the Nazi era, he appeared in 19 motion pictures. Jürgens was apolitical in his youth. Nevertheless, he always expressed his opinion critically and without fear of the state power. In 1944, this attitude almost became his undoing, because he got into a fight with a couple of SS men in a pub in Vienna without knowing their identity. They were the brother of Gestapo chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Robert Kaltenbrunner, SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny and an associate of Baldur von Schirach. Jürgens was arrested and locked up in a labor camp, from where, however, he managed to escape after a short time and went into hiding.

Filmography (excerpt)

About Heinz Reincke

Heinz Franz Ludwig Reincke was born on 28.5.1925 in Kiel. Already as a child the desire developed in him to become an actor. He completed an apprenticeship at the chamber of commerce in Kiel and took acting lessons on the side. The Kiel City Theater initially hired him as a prompter and extra. Until 1955, he played at various theaters in Germany and neighboring countries. In 1955, Gustaf Gründgens brought him to the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. For 10 years he played major character roles there. From 1968 to 1985 he was a member of the ensemble of the Burgtheater in Vienna.

Reincke also appeared in various feature films. His special love, however, was television. He made a name for himself primarily as a series actor. He became known to a wide television audience with his role as a pastor in the TV series “Der Landarzt” from 1987 to 2010. He also appeared in television series such as “Hotel Sacher,” “Ein verrücktes Paar,” “Der Alte,” “Derrick,” “Schwarzwaldklinik,” “Zwei Münchner in Hamburg,” “Großstadtrevier” and other series. Because of his distinctive voice, he was also a sought-after narrator for radio plays, dubbing and audio books. His most significant speaking role was in the film “The Neverending Story,” as the voice of the dragon Falkor. Reincke, who loved playing the role of the edgy North German, however, lived in Vienna with his wife Elfi Petsch since 1968. He died of lung cancer in Purkersdorf near Vienna on July 13, 2011. Heinz Reincke, who had already been an Austrian citizen since 1970, is buried in Vienna’s Central Cemetery.

Filmography (excerpt)

About Johanna von Koczian

Johanna von Koczian-Miskolczy is the daughter of a Berlin noble family and was born in Berlin on October 30, 1933. She studied acting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and began acting in the early 1950s. From 1951 she had a permanent engagement at the Salzburg Festival. In the following years, she appeared mainly in musicals because of her singing talent. In 1955 she was discovered for the film. In films such as “Wir Wunderkinder“, for the role in this film she received the Federal Film Award and the Film Critics’ Prize, as well as in the films “Bezaubernde Arabella“, “Jacqueline“, “Heldinnen” and “Single Bells” she played leading roles, for which she received much praise and recognition. She was also awarded prizes for her great performances on the theater stage. She received the Berlin Art Award, the Golden Mask and three times the Golden Curtain.

She is best known to today’s audiences as an actress in various television series. She played the leading roles in the ARD series “Stewardessen“, “Café Wernicke“, “Die Landärztin” and especially in “Praxis Bülowbogen“. She made several individual appearances in the ZDF series “Der Kommissar“, “Das Traumschiff“, “Derrick” and “Da kommt Kalle“. On ARD she can be seen in individual episodes of the series “Tatort“, “In aller Freundschaft” and “Unter weißen Segeln“. Johanna von Koczian made her last stage appearance to date in 2010 in Berlin. In 1977, she landed a top hit as a singer with the satirical hit “Das bisschen Haushalt.” She is also a successful writer, especially in children’s and youth literature. The novel “Das Geheimnis einer Vollmondnacht” was made into a film.

Filmography (excerpt)

About Elisabeth Flickenschildt

Elisabeth Ida Marie Flickenschildt was born on March 16, 1905 in Hamburg-Blankenese. She grew up in Hamburg and also graduated from high school there. At the age of 23 she took acting lessons and then went to the Hamburg Schauspielhaus. Afterwards she played in Munich and Berlin at different stages.

In 1936 she married the dramaturge and personal assistant of Gustaf Gründgens, Rolf Badenhausen, from whom she divorced again in 1944. She remained with Gründgens, however, and continued to act under his direction. She followed Gründgens from Berlin to Düsseldorf and to Hamburg. Under him, she played every conceivable major female role in the classical theater. In 1935 she joined the film industry. Here, too, she shone with great acting in leading roles in the films “Der zerbrochene Krug,” “Ein Mädchen geht an Land,” “Trenck, der Pandur,” “Rembrandt” and “Romanze in Moll.” During the Nazi era, she was a member of the NSDAP and was on Josef Goebbels’ so-called Gottbegnadeten list. After the war she was imprisoned by the Allies, but only for a short time. The British in particular resented her participation in the anti-British smear films “Ohm Krüger” and “The Fox of Glenarvon” and accused her of falsifying questionnaires regarding her denazification. In the 1950s she continued to act under Gründgens. After his death in 1963, she appeared in many film comedies, such as the film adaptations of Ludwig Thomas‘s Lausbubengeschichten, or in crime films based on novels by Edgar Wallace.

In 1963 she bought the Maria Rast farm on Lake Chiemsee and largely withdrew from theater and film from 1970. In 1965 she converted to the Catholic faith. She took on only occasional roles. In order to be able to accept an engagement at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg again, she moved back to Stade near Hamburg in 1976. Near Stade, she was the victim of a serious car accident in 1977, from the consequences of which she died on October 27, 1977 in Steinkirchen, in the district of Stade. The German Theater lost one of the greatest German stage actresses of the twentieth century. In addition to a large number of honors, she received, among others, the Film Ribbon in Gold, the Bambi and the Great Federal Cross of Merit.

Filmography (excerpt)

About Herbert Fleischmann

Herbert Fleischmann was born in Nuremberg on March 13, 1925. He completed his acting training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. Afterwards he acted at various theaters in Germany and Austria until 1960. He joined the film industry in 1961. He worked for the cinema only very rarely. He did, however, make a name for himself by starring in six film adaptations of novels by bestselling author Johannes Mario Simmel.

On television, he appeared in various roles in well-known television series. He starred in classics like “Raumschiff Orion“, as well as in several episodes of “Der Kommissar“, “Derrick“, “Tatort“, “Der Alte“, “Das Traumschiff“, or “Sonderdezernat K1” and a lot more. He also appeared in a number of radio plays. Fleischmann was married to the actress Ruth Leuwerik from 1949 to 1953. Later he married the Swiss Miriam Spoerri and lived with her in Cavigliano in Ticino, where he also died of heart failure on April 5, 1984.

Filmography (excerpt, feature films only)