Bruno Ganz was a Swiss actor whose career in German stage, television and film productions spanned nearly 60 years.
22 Facts About Bruno Ganz
2.
Bruno Ganz was known for his collaborations with the directors Werner Herzog, Eric Rohmer, Francis Ford Coppola, and Wim Wenders, earning widespread recognition with his roles as Jonathan Zimmerman in The American Friend, Jonathan Harker in Nosferatu the Vampyre and Damiel the Angel in Wings of Desire.
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Bruno Ganz had roles in several English-language films, including The Boys from Brazil, Strapless, Luther, The Manchurian Candidate, The Reader, Unknown, The Counselor and Remember.
4.
On stage, Bruno Ganz portrayed Dr Heinrich Faust in Peter Stein's staging of Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two in 2000.
5.
Bruno Ganz was born on 22 March 1941 in Zurich to a Swiss-German factory worker father and a northern Italian mother.
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Bruno Ganz had decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university.
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Bruno Ganz was equally drawn to stage and screen but initially enjoyed greater success on the stage.
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Bruno Ganz made his theatrical debut in 1961 and devoted himself mainly to the stage for almost the next two decades.
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Bruno Ganz served as a speaker in classical music works, including a 1993 recording of Luigi Nono's Il canto sospeso with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
10.
In 1960 Bruno Ganz landed his first film role, in Der Herr mit der schwarzen Melone.
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Bruno Ganz worked with several directors of the New German Cinema like Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, and with international directors like Eric Rohmer and Francis Ford Coppola, among others.
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Bruno Ganz played a professor opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in the thriller The Boys from Brazil, about Nazi fugitives.
13.
In 1987 Bruno Ganz first played the role of the angel Damiel in Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire.
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Bruno Ganz appeared in The Reader as a Holocaust survivor and as police officer Horst Herold in The Baader Meinhof Complex, which were both nominated for the 81st Academy Awards.
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Bruno Ganz portrayed Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang after four months of researching the role.
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Bruno Ganz's performance was widely acclaimed by critics; The Guardian critic Rob Mackie described Ganz as "the most convincing screen Hitler yet: an old, bent, sick dictator with the shaking hands of someone with Parkinson's, alternating between rage and despair in his last days in the bunker".
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Bruno Ganz's performance has inspired many parodies on YouTube, using video and audio from the film with humorous subtitles.
18.
Bruno Ganz was married to Sabine from 1965 until his death, although they were separated for a long time; their son, Daniel, was born in 1972.
19.
In February 2018, doctors in Salzburg found that Bruno Ganz was suffering from intestinal cancer, and he immediately began chemotherapy.
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Bruno Ganz died on 16 February 2019 at his home in the village of Au, in Wadenswil, Switzerland, at the age of 77, a month shy of his 78th birthday.
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Bruno Ganz was attended by his partner, the theatrical photographer Ruth Walz, and his son Daniel.
22.
Bruno Ganz was honored with the Order of Merit of Germany and was made a knight of the French Legion d'honneur.