Werner Pochath

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Werner Pochath (actually Werner Pochlatko , born September 29, 1939 in Vienna , † April 18, 1993 in Kempfenhausen , Bavaria ) was an Austrian actor .

Werner Pochath (1970; right)

Life

The former Austrian youth champion in figure skating learned the craft of acting at the renowned Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. There he made his debut as a stage actor at the Theater Die Courage in 1959 . Theater stations in Karlsruhe (1959–1961), in Berlin ( Schillertheater ), Basel, Vienna ( Theater in der Josefstadt ), Stuttgart and Munich ( Münchner Kammerspiele ) followed. In 1968 he moved to Rome. Despite later film successes, Pochath kept coming back to the stage for guest performances.

In the year of his stage debut, Pochath also appeared for the first time in a television production - alongside Elisabeth Flickenschildt in Ludwig Cremer's The Visit of the Old Lady , an adaptation of Dürrenmatt 's tragic comedy of the same name . In 1967 Rolf Thiele cast him as the villain for the crime thriller The Death of a Double . The blonde actor with the steel blue eyes was thus committed to this image for a long time. He very often embodied negative, mentally unstable, cold-blooded and psychopathic characters. He was seen, for example, as a counterpart to Götz Georges in the thriller I'll blow you all up in the air and by Curd Jürgens in Franz Antels From tomorrow we'll be rich and honest .

From 1968 Pochath was based in Rome, where he was cast for various Italian, Spanish and American film productions, mostly in similar stereotypical roles. He played alongside numerous internationally known stars such as Tomás Milián (in Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti western The Red Sun of Vengeance ), James Coburn (in the adventure film On the Trail of the Eagle ), Tony Curtis (in the comedy Casanova & Co. ), Joan Collins (in the erotic film The Pimp ), Bud Spencer ( Flatfoot in Africa ), Richard Burton (in the war drama Steiner - The Iron Cross II ), Franco Nero ( Jungle Django ), David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich (in Beautiful Gigolo, poor gigolo directed by David Hemmings ), Richard Chamberlain (in the TV series Wallenberg about the Swedish diplomat of the same name ) and Gene Hackman (in the thriller Target - Target ). He also took on guest roles in numerous episodes of the crime series Der Kommissar , Der Alte and Derrick .

Since the 1980s, Pochath played mainly in B-movies from the action genre, sometimes using the pseudonym Paul Werner . His last films include the thriller The Joker (with Peter Maffay ), the action film Laser Mission (with Ernest Borgnine and Brandon Lee ) and the crime thriller The Sun over the Jungle , in which he was once able to allude to his film image as a terrorist hunter.

From 1990 Werner Pochath also ran a film agency and a casting office. He played his last role in an episode of the crime series Peter Strohm with Klaus Löwitsch in the lead role. During the filming, the health of the AIDS- sick actor deteriorated noticeably. Werner Pochath died on April 18, 1993 at the age of 53 in the arms of his friend, the Hamburg ballet director John Neumeier , of cirrhosis of the liver caused by the strong medication. His grave is in the Evangelical Cemetery Graz -St. Peter.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller, Man for Man, page 560
  2. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Werner Pochath
personal data
SURNAME Pochath, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pochlatko, Werner (maiden name); Werner, Paul (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1993
Place of death Kempfenhausen , Bavaria, Germany