Gert Fröbe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gert Fröbe
Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger in 1964
Born	February 25, 1913(1913-02-25)
Died	September 5, 1988 (aged 75)
Occupation	actor
Years active	1948–1988

Karl Gerhart Fröbe, better known as Gert Fröbe (pronounced [geɐt fʁøbə]) (February 25, 1913 – September 5, 1988), was a German actor who starred in many films, including the James Bond film Goldfinger as Auric Goldfinger and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Baron Bomburst and in "Der Räuber Hotzenplotz" as Hotzenplotz

Fröbe made several appearances in big all-star casts in the 1960s, including the films The Longest Day, Is Paris Burning?, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Due to his thick German accent, Fröbe was dubbed in some of his classic roles, including by British actor Michael Collins in Goldfinger. He also appeared in $ (1971) with Goldie Hawn and Warren Beatty.

While Fröbe was a member of the Nazi Party before and during World War II, he aided German Jews by hiding them from the Gestapo before 1945. Owing to his connection to the Nazi Party, the film Goldfinger was banned in Israel until he was publicly thanked by a Jewish family.^[1]

Fröbe gained early fame in one of the first movies made after WWII, called Berliner Ballade (The Ballad of Berlin, 1948), as a very thin man. That changed rapidly in later movies. In 1958 Fröbe was cast as the villain in the Swiss-German movie Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight), which was novelised by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. His role as an insane murderer of children drew the attention of the producers of the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964) and he was finally to play one of the most remarkable and remembered villains of the series, gold tycoon Auric Goldfinger.

Aside from acting, Fröbe also was a prolific reciter of lyric poetry, especially of Christian Morgenstern and Joachim Ringelnatz.

Fröbe died, aged 75, in September 1988 from a heart attack.

[edit] Trivia

• In the film Joe Dirt, actor Christopher Walken's character, protected by the United States witness protection program, changed his name to Gert B. Frobe. Both Fröbe and Walken have played Bond villains.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Gert Fröbe at the Internet Movie Database

Preceded by Lotte Lenya

Official James Bond villain actor 1964

Succeeded by Adolfo Celi

Persondata
NAME	Fröbe, Gert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German actor
DATE OF BIRTH	February 25, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH	Planitz
DATE OF DEATH	September 5, 1988
PLACE OF DEATH	Munich, Germany