One of Hollywood’s most famous German actors, Udo Kier, known for his villainous roles, has died at the age of 81, American magazine Variety said on Sunday, citing his colleague Delbert McBride. The cause of death has not been revealed.
His distinctive features, characterized by a piercing, almost frightening blue gaze, combined with a slim silhouette, allowed him to act in more than 200 films over more than half a century.
After gaining fame in the early 1970s in the feature films “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula”, produced by Andy Warhol, he played for some of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, such as his compatriot Rainer Werner Fassbinder (“Lili Marleen”, 1981) or Dane Lars von Trier, of whom he was one of the favorite actors (“Melancholia”, 2011).
Final on-screen appearance in 2025
In the 1990s, Udo Kier played several supporting roles in major Hollywood productions, such as “Ace Ventura, Cat and Dog Detective”, “Armageddon” and “Blade”.
Born Udo Kierspe in Cologne in 1944 and rescued from the rubble after an Allied air raid hit a hospital, Kier grew up in post-war Germany before moving to London at the age of 18 to learn English. He then traveled between Europe and the United States during his career before later settling in Los Angeles, then Palm Springs.
His last appearance on screen was in 2025, where he played a Jewish Holocaust survivor in Brazil in Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” which won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
