Los Angeles, November 24 (Adnkronos) – Farewell to Udo Kier, the German actor and cult icon who collaborated with leading figures, from Andy Warhol to Lars von Trier to Madonna: he died Sunday morning in Palm Springs at the age of 81.
The news of his death was conveyed by his colleague, artist Delbert McBride. Among the more than 200 films he starred in, the most famous was the collaboration with Warhol. Kier played his greatest roles in 1973’s ‘Frankenstein’ and 1974’s ‘Dracula of Blood’. Both directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Warhol, the films were subversive and sensual reimaginings of classic Hollywood monsters, with Kier giving a disturbing but incompetent performance as the title character.
The two films made Kier famous, and he spent the next twenty years working in Europe and collaborating with legendary writer-director Rainer Werner Fassbinder on films such as ‘The Stationmaster’s Wife,’ ‘The Third Generation’ and ‘Lili Marleen.’ Later, at the Berlin Film Festival, Kier met two-time Oscar-nominated director Gus Van Sant, whom Kier credits with giving him an American work permit.
In 1991, Van Sant introduced Kier to American audiences with his coming-of-age drama ‘The Beautiful and the Damned,’ based on Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV.’ Kier plays a supporting role alongside River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. Around the same time, Kier began his lifelong collaboration with Lars von Trier. Starting in the late 1980s with ‘Epidemic,’ Kier appeared in the 1991 film ‘Europa,’ before appearing in several episodes of von Trier’s horror-thriller series ‘The Kingdom’ throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Their other film collaborations include ‘Breaking the Woods,’ ‘Dancer in the Dark,’ ‘Dogville,’ ‘Melancholia,’ and ‘Nymphomaniac: Vol. II’.
The 1990s also saw Kier in several supporting roles in major Hollywood productions, such as ‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’, ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Blade’. She also appeared in Madonna’s famous erotic book ‘Sex’ in 1992, and in her music videos for ‘Erotica’ and ‘Deeper and Deeper’ from her album ‘Erotica’. Recently, Kier appeared in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film ‘The Secret Agent’. The film earned star Wagner Moura the Best Actor award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Udo Kier, born Udo Kierspe, was born in Cologne, Germany, in a hospital that was bombed by Allied forces. She moved to London at the age of 18 after meeting Fassbinder in a bar. “I loved the attention, that’s why I became an actor,” he admitted to ‘Variety’ in an interview in 2024. After working between Europe and the United States for decades, Kier settled between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, cultivating his interest in art, architecture and collecting.
