R.I.P. Hardy Krüger

[Arneb]

Died in Hollywood last night, aged 93.

Not that I have seen any of his films, but he is mildly noteworthy to me because he was one of the veryy few German Hollywood film stars after the war. Born to ardent NSDAP supporters, he spent a few years in a Nazi élite boarding school before befriending an actor who hid Jews in his house and arranged for their escape to Switzerland, which caused a radical change in his views. He narrowly escaped execution for failure to carry out orders in the last days of the war. He took the usual provincial theatre--> small German film production --> somewhat larger German film productions route post-war and could undoubtedly have made a comfortable living producing for budding German TV, but he made it to the Big Screen. Some of you may remember him, The One That got Away, Potato Fritz, A Bridge Too Far, The Wild Geese, wrong Is Right.

In Germany, he also gained recognition as a writer, travel documentarist and anti-Nazi political activist.

Overall, an excellent innings from a very bad starting position.

[Heid the Ba]

Indeed, the counterpoint to the old Jesuit saying.