German actor Hardy Krüger has died at the age of 93 in Palm Springs, California, as confirmed by his agent in Hamburg. Settled in the United States for decades, he became the first ‘German face’ to have a successful career in Hollywood, where he arrived after World War II and after having even worked on a film for the propaganda of the Nazi regime.
Born in Berlin in 1928, he grew up as Hitler’s power did in Germany and already in World War II he was selected to participate in the film Junge Adler (Young Eagles), a film with which the regime intended to target the youngest appealing to the work ethic. He was only 15 years old and had felt a passion for acting. For this reason, shortly after, he began to participate in theaters in Hamburg and by 1949 he was doing so in venues in Berlin and Munich.
In the 1950s, Krüger traveled to Paris and London looking for new challenges and it was precisely in the British capital that he connected with producer J. Arthur Rank, who got him roles in The Only Escaped, Bachelor of Hearts and The Key to the Enigma. These works took him to stardom and in 1962 he made one of his most important works: Hatari!, together with John Wayne. The recording of the tape was possible thanks to the ranch that Krüger himself had in Ngorongoro, in northern Tanzania.
He would end up participating in more than 70 films and earned the right to be able to choose the best scripts, especially for his fluency in languages so demanded in the industry such as German and French, in addition to English. Thus, he would share a cast with Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Robert Redford and Anthony Hopkins in A Bridge Too Far and with Anthony Quinn in The Flight of the Phoenix.
Passion for literature and three marriages
In 1970 Hardy Krüger began his career as a writer and has died with more than a dozen novels on his resume. In addition, also in the 70s he married Anita Krüger, his third wife and with whom he has been 46 years. He was previously with Renate Densow between 1944 and 1964 and with Francesca Marazzi, between 1965 and 1977. He had three children: Christiane, the fruit of his relationship with Densow, Hardy Jr and Malaika, who were born from his love affair with Marazzi.
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