Klaus Löwitsch

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Klaus Löwitsch (1988)

Klaus Löwitsch (born April 8, 1936 in Berlin , † December 3, 2002 in Munich ) was a German actor . He is considered an important character actor in film, television and on the theater stage.

Life

Klaus Löwitsch was the son of an Austrian graduate engineer and a Berlin ballet dancer who moved to Vienna in 1946 . He spent his youth in Vienna, where he completed classical dance training at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts . He also studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar . His career began with the musical Kiss Me, Kate at the Vienna Volksoper .

From 1961 Löwitsch played leading roles in various theaters in all German-speaking countries. From 1958 he was seen in feature films ( Der Pauker ) and from the mid-1960s increasingly on television. In the 13-part series Üb 'always Treu as far as possible , he played alongside Monika Berg for the first time one of those chic crooks that he skillfully reproduced in later film and television productions.

Of particular importance for Klaus Löwitsch was his collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the 1970s, for example in the role of Hermann Braun in The Marriage of Maria Braun . He appeared in more than 300 film and television roles, for example in the Fassbinder film Welt am Draht . His films also made international film producers aware of Löwitsch. He played alongside Jon Voight in The Odessa Files and in both parts of Steiner - The Iron Cross alongside James Coburn and Richard Burton . In the action film Firefox with Clint Eastwood , he played a Russian general.

As a singer, Löwitsch released a record of love songs in 1976 ( We live and we love - Klaus Löwitsch sings love songs ) based on texts by Hermann Hesse , Federico García Lorca , Shakespeare and others. The subsequent album Narrenprozession (1978), with settings of poems by Michael Ende , did not go on sale at the author's request - although it was finished.

Increased appearances in crime series such as Tatort , Derrick or Der Alte as well as his roles as a private detective in the ARD series Detective Office Roth and Hafendetektiv made Löwitsch's popularity rise further in the 1980s. In the role of Peter Strohm , he was considered a "German James Bond ". The series, which he also directed, had 63 episodes. Clearly inspired by Peter Strohm, the Bastei-Lübbe publishing house brought the Peter Mattek novel series onto the market.

As a speaker for radio plays , Löwitsch spoke the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in the first episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . He had previously worked as a speaker on fairy tale records for children, e.g. B. as lamprey in a radio play adaptation of the children's book Der kleine Wassermann by Otfried Preußler .

As a voice actor he lent a. a. Richard Jaeckel (The Ultimatum) and Warren Oates (I think a moose smooches me) his voice.

Klaus Löwitsch played a speaking role in the Windows project , which was given a one-off concert performance on June 1, 1974 in the Herkulesaal of the Munich Residence. The two original compositions Continuo On BACH played there and the eponymous Windows were released in the same year as LP or MC and later as CD as a sound carrier by Deep Purple musician Jon Lord . The speaker contribution by Klaus Löwitsch (as well as other recorded material) can currently only be found as a private recording of a broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on YouTube.

For a while, at the beginning of the 1990s, Löwitsch expressed his sympathy for the FPÖ chairman Jörg Haider , but then later supported the PDS program .

For his performance in the psychodrama The Judgment , Klaus Löwitsch received the Adolf Grimme Prize and the Bavarian Television Prize in 1998 . In 1970 he was awarded the German Film Prize for Best Actor for Roger Fritz ' Mädchen ... only by force .

In June 2001 he was sentenced by the Berlin-Tiergarten District Court to a fine of 27,000 DM for negligent intoxication (5.15 per thousand) after he had beaten and sexually coerced a woman in Berlin-Mitte. Because of his condition, however, he could not be held criminally responsible. Löwitsch initially appealed the judgment, but withdrew it in November 2001.

His last works and legacy were the three audio books Revelation and Downfall (audio book prize of the University of Tübingen), Ich, Kreatur ... and Wittgenstein , a personal examination of the meaning of life, the path of people and the beauty of existence.

Klaus Löwitsch was married to the dancer Helga Heinrich.

He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 66 and was buried in Munich's Ostfriedhof (grave no. 88-11-4). His drama colleague Dieter Laser gave the funeral speech .

Filmography

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Penalty: Löwitsch does not want to pay Spiegel Online of July 10, 2001.
  2. ↑ Appeal: TV star Löwitsch published on Spiegel Online from November 9, 2001.
  3. ^ Löwitsch funeral: "They wanted to take your honor" Spiegel Online from December 9, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Löwitsch, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 2002
Place of death Munich