Helmut Griem

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The chaffinches 1954: Helmut Griem (bottom left), Dietrich Neuhaus, Käthe Straßburger, Nils Sustrate

Helmut Griem (born April 6, 1932 in Hamburg , † November 19, 2004 in Munich ) was a German actor and theater director . He appeared in major roles on almost all major German-speaking theaters, but also gained international recognition as a film and television actor.

Life

Helmut Griem (left) in 1968 at the awarding of the Berlin Art Prize

Helmut Griem was born in Hamburg as the son of a radio officer. He originally studied literature and philosophy with the aim of becoming a journalist. In order to earn some money for his studies, Griem also worked as a performer in semi-professional drama groups. During an engagement with the chaffinches , Griem, who, according to his own account, had never thought of an acting career, was committed to professional theater in Lübeck . He promptly received the title role in the play Die Regenmacher in Lübeck . During this time, he kept afloat financially by writing short stories for newspapers and radio plays for the radio.

Although he had never attended drama school, Griem was able to establish himself as an esteemed theater actor within a few years. At the end of the 1950s he worked for Oscar Fritz Schuh at the Cologne Theater, which gave him his final breakthrough. In the following decades Griem was active on all major German-speaking theaters. He was engaged in engagements at the Thalia Theater and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Vienna Burgtheater , the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin , the Münchner Kammerspiele and most recently at the Residenztheater ( Bavarian State Theater ) in Munich. He played the major roles from the plays by Lessing, Kleist and Goethe, but also appeared in more modern plays such as Tennessee Williams . His Faust - From Heaven through the World to Hell , directed by Dieter Dorn , was even recorded in 1988 for a television broadcast.

Since 1960 Griem has also worked as a film actor and he won a Bambi for Best Young Actor for his first film Factory of Officers . His subsequent films, however, had little success, which is why he turned away from film at times. His international breakthrough on the big screen came in 1969 as SS- Obersturmbannführer Aschenbach in the classic film Die Verdammten , directed by Luchino Visconti . Three years later, Griem was to shoot the biography of Ludwig II again with the Italian Visconti . After the success with Die Verdammten , Griem played in numerous top-class film productions from home and abroad. In Oscar -prämierten film musical Cabaret by Bob Fosse in 1972, he played about on the side of Liza Minnelli and Michael York rich Baron Maximilian von Heune .

Griem family burial site , Ohlsdorf cemetery

One of his important film roles was Hans Schnier in Views of a Clown (1975), the film adaptation of Heinrich Böll 's novel of the same name. Other important directors with whom Griem worked include Volker Schlöndorff ( The Moral of Ruth Halbfass ), Hans W. Geißendörfer ( The Glass Cell ), Rainer Werner Fassbinder ( Berlin Alexanderplatz ) and Jacques Rouffio ( The Walker from Sans-Souci ).

Despite great film success, the theater remained the center of his work. Especially in the late phase of his career, Helmut Griem himself directed, for example, at the Münchner Kammerspiele One Long Day's Journey into the Night by Eugene O'Neill . With his work on the Botho Strauss -Stück The one and the other start could he not more.

Helmut Griem died in 2004 at the age of 72 after a brief serious illness. He was buried in Hamburg's Ohlsdorf cemetery in the area of ​​the family grave in grid square F14 near Chapel 4.

Griem had been married to actress Helga Köhler since 1973. The marriage produced a son named Philip.

Important theater work

Productions at the Münchner Kammerspiele (selection):

  • "Be nice to Mr. Sloane" by Joe Orton
  • "The Hero of the Western World" by John M. Synge
  • "Love Letters" by AR Gurney
  • " The beautiful stranger " by Klaus Pohl
  • "One Long Day's Journey Into the Night" by Eugene O'Neill

Filmography

synchronization

As a voice actor Griem lent his voice u. a. James Garner (Sexy! - Men need to be on a leash) and Sam Shepard (Homo Faber) .

Web links

Commons : Helmut Griem  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary in the mirror
  2. ↑ Obituary in the mirror
  3. ↑ Interview with many photos by Helmut Griem ad-free Kultur Fibel
  4. ↑ Obituary in the mirror
  5. ↑ Obituary in the star
  6. ↑ Grave site at knerger.de
personal data
SURNAME Griem, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg , Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 2004
Place of death Munich , Germany