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Iconic American-born singer and actor in international films since the 1950s. Born in L.A. to Russian immigrant parents, Constantine studied voice in Vienna. He returned to the US, where his singing career wavered and he found work as a film extra. Constantine first achieved fame in Paris, where he launched a successful career as a popular singer under the tutelage of Édith Piaf. On screen from 1953, his tough guy manner was put to good use in French imitations of Humphrey Bogart films, several of which featured Peter Cheyney's no-nonsense, hard-hitting private detective, Lemmy Caution. In 1965 Jean-Luc Godard appropriated both Constantine and the Caution character for Alphaville (1965), a futuristic, parodic homage to the detective genre. The tough guys that craggy-faced Constantine played were ideals derived from the already stylized and ritualized world of G-men and private eyes found in American movies. Filmmakers of the New German Cinema resurrected Constantine and his persona; notably, Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast him as the laconic star of the film-within-the-film in Beware of a Holy Whore (1971). Constantine also appeared in a number of German TV dramas in the 70s and 80s and, late in life, reprised his most famous role in Godard's Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (1991).

Corpulent German character actor, often seen in menacing or unpleasant roles. Trained under Lina Carstens (1935-1937), Peters initially started out as a comedian. After military service in World War II, he reinvented himself as a serious dramatic actor, resident for some time at the Munich Kammerspiele and at the Deutsches Theater. From 1948 onwards, he was signed as a character player by the East German film company DEFA, where he became noted for several exceptional performances in films like The Affair Blum (1948) and, as the obsequious, power-hungry Dietrich Hessling, in the controversial Der Untertan (1951) (a starring role which won him an East German National Prize).

Peters moved to the West in 1955 to portray Nazis, corrupt establishment figures, sinister spies and reprehensible philistines (as well as the odd police inspector or victim) in local and international films. He hit the apex of his career with Robert Siodmak's The Devil Strikes at Night (1957), as a uniformed minor Nazi functionary. His dark screen image also made Peters a perennial favorite as protagonist for the ever-popular "Dr. Mabuse" films and the Edgar Wallace series of potboilers. In addition to his work in front of the camera, Peters set up a dubbing studio in 1958 (Rondo Films) for which he himself supplied German voice-overs for international stars like Donald Pleasence and Rod Steiger.

Dieter Schaad was born on 2 April 1926 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Denunziantin (1993), Victor and the Secret of Crocodile Mansion (2012) and Club der roten Bänder (2015). He was married to Dagmar Hessenland. He died on 4 February 2023 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Christian Reiner was an actor, known for Wallenstein (1978), Der Kandidat (1986) and Sonderdezernat K1 (1972). He died on 24 December 1991 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Heinz Schenk was born on 11 December 1924 in Mainz, Germany. He was a writer and actor, known for Kein Pardon (1993), Der Geizhals (1992) and Der eingebildete Kranke (1996). He was married to Gerti Schenk. He died on 1 May 2014 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Forgotten today, Marcella Albani was an idol of the European cinema in the final years of the 1920s, making dozens of films in five different countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Czechoslovakia). After sound came, her popularity declined and she turned to writing. One of her novels "La Città dell'amore" was even adapted for the big screen by Mario Franchini, her husband. She went on acting until 1936. After a final appearance in Luis Trenker Der Kaiser von Kalifornien (1936), she retired from acting and led a peaceful life at the Ligurian Coast. Born in 1899, Marcella Albani had been discovered twenty years afterward by writer-director Guido Parish with whom she formed a very successful team. The couple made nearly all their respective films together (mainly tearjerkers and adventure yarns) until 1924 when they parted company. Their first movies were made in Italy until Parish decided to go to Germany. Marcella followed her mentor - who had changed his name to Guido Schamberg - there, and she met with instant success. Very exotic as the elegant Latin lady against a German backdrop, she enraptured German males in flicks such as Frauenschicksal (1923), Das Spiel der Liebe (1924) or Die Flucht in den Zirkus (1926). When she became freelance, she was occasionally chosen by important directors like Joe May, Friedrich Zelnik' or William Dieterle. One thing leading to another Marcella Albani made no fewer than fifty-odd films in only seventeen years. She was not even sixty when, having fallen into oblivion, she died of a brain tumor. Will she be rediscovered some day?

Otto Gebühr was born on 29 May 1877 in Kettwig, Essen, Rhine Province, Prussia [now Northrhine-Westphalia], Germany. He was an actor and producer, known for Der große König (1942), Fridericus (1937) and Die Mühle von Sanssouci (1926). He was married to Doris Krüger and Cornelia Bertha Julius. He died on 14 March 1954 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Wilfried Seyferth was born on 21 April 1908 in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. He was an actor, known for Der Selbstmörder - Ins Grab kann man nichts mitnehmen (2. Fassung) (1941), Decision Before Dawn (1951) and Die Wirtin zum Weißen Röß'l (1943). He was married to Eva Ingeborg Scholz, Lu Säuberlich, Irene Naef and Tatjana Iwanow. He died on 9 October 1954 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Erna Sack, "The German Nightingale" was born in Berlin in 1898 and was still a child when her voice attracted attention both at school and in the church choir in which she sang. For her parents, however, there could be no question of her training to become a singer. It was only when her fiancé, Hermann Sack, whom she married in 1921, interceded on her behalf that her parents changed their minds. Accordingly, she moved to Prague to study with her first teacher. Erna Jack finally joined the ranks of Germany's leading coloratura sopranos. By 1934 she was singing mostly at the Dresden State Opera, where she attracted the attention of Karl Böhm and, above all, Richard Strauss. Her first concert tours were to Austria, Holland, France and England (Covent Garden in 1936) and she had a contract with Telefunken Records. In 1937 she played at the State Opera House in Vienna. She also went to Rome, where she sang in Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" with Tito Schipa. After that, she went to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and for the first time to the USA at Carnegie Hall with Richard Tauber and Josef Schmidt. She also sang in Italian at Chicago's Lyric Opera.

During the war, Erna Sack's career was limited almost exclusively to Germany and her allies. After the war, her career was slow to restart in Latin America, especially Brazil, Argentina, Urugay and Chile. By that time, she was a Brazilian citizen because of her husband. But it was in Canada that she enjoyed her greatest successes at this time, and for a number of years the couple lived in Montreal. In 1954 she moved on to Carnegie Hall and then ended up in Germany with the brief tour of German Democratic Republic in 1957. She also made two appearances on TV in the mid 60s and two Movies Blumen aus Nizza (1936) and Nanon (1938).

Wim Thoelke was born on 9 May 1927 in Mülheim an der Ruhr, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was a writer and actor, known for Tatort (1970), Das aktuelle Sportstudio (1963) and Total Normal (1989). He was married to Ulla Thoelke. He died on 26 November 1995 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Martina Servatius was born on 30 October 1954 in East Berlin, East Germany. She was an actress, known for Verbotene Liebe (1995), Tatort (1970) and Familie Neumann (1984). She was married to Karl Jürgen Sihler. She died on 4 July 2016 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Dieter Zimmer was born on 19 December 1939 in Leipzig, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for Das kalifornische Quartett (1995), Für 'n Groschen Brause (1983) and Der Experte (1988). He was married to Ulrike Meißner. He died on 17 June 2024 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Marek Hlasko was born on 14 January 1934 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland. He was a writer, known for The Eighth Day of the Week (1958), The Noose (1958) and Skarb kapitana Martensa (1957). He was married to Sonja Ziemann. He died on 14 June 1969 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Martin Niemöller was born on 14 January 1892 in Lippstadt, Westphalia, Prussia [now North Rhine-Westphalia], Germany. He was a writer, known for First They Came for... (2008), Martin Niemöller: Was würde Jesus dazu sagen? (1985) and Zur Person (1963). He was married to Else Bremer and Sibylle Sarah von Sell. He died on 6 March 1984 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Pete Lancaster was born on 23 June 1946 in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Name of the Rose (1986), A Case for Two (1981) and Hafendetektiv (1987). He died on 24 February 2012 in Wiesbaden, Hessen, Germany.

Eugen Klöpfer was born on 10 March 1886 in Talheim, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Der Spieler (1938), Götz von Berlichingen zubenannt mit der eisernen Hand (1925) and Luther (1928). He was married to ???. He died on 3 March 1950 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Alexander Hunzinger was born on 16 February 1888 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Dubarry (1951), The Lost Man (1951) and Geheimakten Solvay (1953). He died on 4 March 1976 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Freytag studied German in Breslau from 1835, and a year later he moved to the University of Berlin. In 1838 he received his doctorate from the classical philologist Karl Lachmann. phil. He began successful attempts at poetry while still a student. The following year, in 1839, he completed his habilitation with his work on the medieval poet Hrotsvit von Gandersheim. He then worked as a private lecturer in German language and literature in Breslau until 1844. The only twenty-three-year-old came to this position through his good relationship with his teacher, the poet and literary historian A. H. Hoffmann, better known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben. He resigned from this post due to professional differences. Gustav Freytag became a professional journalist and writer. Together with the literary historian Julian Schmidt, Freytag edited the national liberal magazine "Die Grenzboten" from 1848 onwards. In addition to political education, the literary program of the realistic representation principle was also pursued. He carried out this journalistic activity until 1870.

The liberal-minded Gustav Freytag often addressed the social problems of his time. Among other things, he was a co-founder of a charitable association for needy weavers. In 1854 he was appointed court councilor by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the period from 1867 to 1870 he was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the National Liberals. He experienced the war of 1870/1871 as a journalist. In 1881 he moved to Wiesbaden. Freytag's view of poetry was linked to the quality of the popular, which is evident, for example, in the volume of poems "In Breslau" (1845) and in his close association with Berthold Auerbach, a writer of village stories. As a playwright, Gustav Freytag celebrated his first success in 1844 with the comedy "The Bride's Journey, or Kunz von der Rosen", which received an award from the Royal Theater in Berlin. Other comedies followed, such as "The Journalists", which premiered in 1852 and gave him his greatest theatrical success. The piece refers to contemporary politics and tells of the connection between private and public conflict situations.

Freytag was appointed to the Schiller Prize Commission in Berlin. In the tragedy "The Fabians" (1959) he realized his own dramatic technique, which he later, in 1863, wrote down in the work "Technology of Drama". The author's conception of drama is based on the ancient and classical movement. In his novels he romanticized the bourgeois society of his time. The title "Debit and Credit" is his best-known narrative work, which is about the world of merchants, but in a deeper sense contains a social snapshot of the Wilhelminian era. The action of the scholarly novel "The Lost Handwriting" takes place in the educated middle class. Based on a family history in the six-volume novel series "The Ancestors", the chronological sequence of the German people from the Teutons to Freytag's present is traced. The work was published after the second German empire, which Freytag welcomed. To do this, he used his own five-volume cultural-historical work "Images from the German Past" (1859-1867) as a template.

Above all, Freytag made a name for himself as a popular author of contemporary German civil society with the successful novels "Debit and Credit", "The Lost Handwriting" and "The Ancestors", in which he carried out a literary transfiguration in a realistic style. His other works include "De initiis scenicae poesis apud Germanos" (1838), "Die Valentine" (1847), "Karl Mathy. Story of his life" (1869) and "Collected Works" (1886-1888).

Gustav Freytag died on April 30, 1895 in Wiesbaden.

Gerhard Löwenthal was born on 8 December 1922 in Berlin, Germany. He was a director and actor, known for Menschen und Mächte (1963), ZDF-Magazin (1969) and Dalli Dalli (1971). He was married to Ingeborg Lemmer. He died on 6 December 2002 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Michael Palme was born in 1943 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was an editor and writer, known for Der Sport-Spiegel (1963) and Vorsicht, Falle! - Nepper, Schlepper, Bauernfänger (1964). He died on 10 February 2010 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Conny Carstennsen was born on 8 December 1888 in Colmar, Alsace, Germany [now Haut-Rhin, France]. He was a production manager and actor, known for Zwölf Herzen für Charly (1949), Wer nimmt die Liebe ernst...? (1931) and Die Dubarry (1951). He died on 14 June 1957 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Martin Jente was born on 6 January 1909 in Görlitz, Germany. He was a producer and actor, known for Frankfurter Palette (1958), Heute letzter Tag (Ein Abend im 'Eldorado') (1960) and Kulinade (1972). He was married to Ellen Beguhl-Turcsany-Kranl. He died on 14 February 1996 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Artur von Schwertführer was born on 3 February 1891 in Leoben, Austria. He was a cinematographer, known for Richthofen, der rote Ritter der Luft (1927), Die Liebe der Bajadere (1926) and Der König der Mittelstürmer (1927). He died on 13 March 1967 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

B.G. The Prince of Rap was an actor and composer, known for B.G. The Prince of Rap: This Beat Is Hot (Version 1) (1991), B.G. The Prince of Rap: This Beat Is Hot (Version 2) (1991) and B.G. The Prince of Rap: Give Me the Music (1991). He died on 21 January 2023 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.

Mustafa Schikane was born in 1937 in Syria. He died on 18 July 1981 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.