| Helmut Griem | |
| Birth Date: | 6 April 1932 |
| Birth Place: | Hamburg, Germany |
| Death Place: | Munich, Germany |
| Occupation: | Actor, theatre director |
| Yearsactive: | 1956–2002 |
Helmut Griem (6 April 1932 – 19 November 2004) was a German film, television and stage actor, and director.
Born in Hamburg, Griem was primarily a stage actor, appearing at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Burgtheater in Vienna, the Munich Kammerspiele, and finally in the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, also in Munich.
Griem became well known to international audiences as the diabolic SS-officer Aschenbach in The Damned. His role in the Academy Award-winning film Cabaret (1972) as the wealthy bisexual Baron Maximilian von Heune is probably his best-known international performance.[1]
Other performances include his work in The McKenzie Break, and Ludwig and Breakthrough. Among his many film and TV appearances was one in NBC's Peter the Great as the Tsar's lifelong friend and "right hand" Alexander Menshikov, alongside Maximilian Schell. He starred in the television mini-series The Devil's Lieutenant directed by John Goldschmidt, adapted by Jack Rosenthal and based on the novel by the Hungarian-American playwright and author Maria Fagyas (1905–1985), for Channel 4 and ZDF.
Griem performed in many classic roles from both the German and English-language repertoire. Later in his career Griem turned to theatre direction, including Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill. Before his death, he had planned to direct the Botho Strauss play, Die eine und die andere (This One and The Other). Griem twice won the Bambi Award: in 1961 and in 1976.[2]
He died in Munich in 2004, aged 72.
| Title | Author | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intrigue and Love | Ferdinand | Willi Schmidt | |
| Leonce and Lena | Leonce | Hans Bauer | |
| As You Like It | Orlando | Willi Schmidt | |
| The Glass Menagerie | Tom | Willi Schmidt | |
| Richard II | William Shakespeare | Title Role | Hans Lietzau |
| The Cherry Orchard | Lopachin | Hans Lietzau | |
| The Philanthropist | Philipp | Dieter Dorn | |
| The Prince of Homburg | Title Role | Hans Lietzau | |
| The Maids | Claire | Dieter Dorn | |
| Philoctetes | Title Role | Hans Lietzau | |
| Die Räuber | Friedrich Schiller | Karl Moor | Hans Lietzau |
| My Fair Lady | Professor Higgins | August Everding | |
| Troilus and Cressida | William Shakespeare | Thersites | Dieter Dorn |
| Faust | Title Role | Dieter Dorn | |
| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | George | Martin Meltge | |
| Year | Title | Role | Language | Director | With... | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Oberleutnant Krafft | German | ||||
| 1961 | Girl from Hong Kong | Glenn Dierks | German | |||
| Barbara | Doctor Poul Aggersø | German | ||||
| The Dream of Lieschen Mueller | Jan | German | ||||
| 1962 | (Today in Berlin) | Hans | Italian | Piero Vivarelli Written by Piero Vivarelli, Giuseppe Isani | ||
| 1963 | Because, Because of a Woman | Johann Muller | French | |||
| 1968 | Georges Duroy | German | TV film | |||
| 1969 | The Damned | Aschenbach | English | |||
| 1970 | The McKenzie Break | Kapitänleutnant Schlüter | English | |||
| 1972 | Cabaret | Baron Maximilian von Heune | English | |||
| The Morals of Ruth Halbfass | Franz Vogelsang | German | ||||
| Ludwig | Count Dürckheim | English | ||||
| 1975 | Children of Rage | Dr. David Shalom | English | |||
| 1976 | The Clown | Hans Schnier | German | |||
| The Desert of the Tartars | Lieutenant Simeon | Italian | ||||
| Voyage of the Damned | Otto Schiendick | English | ||||
| 1978 | Germany in Autumn | German | Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, Edgar Reitz, Alexander Kluge, et al. | |||
| The Glass Cell | Phillip Braun | German | ||||
| Willi Mohr | Swedish | |||||
| Les Rendez-vous d'Anna | Heinrich Schneider | French | ||||
| 1979 | Breakthrough | Major Stransky | English | |||
| The Hamburg Syndrome | Sebastian | German | ||||
| 1980 | Put on Ice | Lehrer Brasch | German | |||
| 1981 | Martin Rethmann | German | ||||
| Hans | German | |||||
| Ludwig | German | TV film | ||||
| 1982 | The Magic Mountain | James Tienappel | German | Christoph Eichhorn, Marie-France Pisier, Rod Steiger and Charles Aznavour | ||
| Eduard Otto | French | TV film | ||||
| La Passante du Sans-Souci | Michel Wiener | French | ||||
| 1984 | The Devil's Lieutenant | Judge Advocate Kunze | English | TV film | ||
| 1986 | Peter the Great | English | TV miniseries | |||
| German | ||||||
| 1987 | The Second Victory | Karl Fischer | English | |||
| 1988 | German | Dieter Dorn (Filmed theatre performance) | ||||
| 1989 | A proposito di quella strana ragazza | Ugo De Magistris | Italian | |||
| Hard Days, Hard Nights | Kronschneider | German | ||||
| 1990 | The Plot to Kill Hitler | English | TV film | |||
| Shooting Stars | Gutke | English | ||||
| 1991 | Landläufiger Tod | Judge Sonnenberg | German | TV film | ||
| 1993 | Charlemagne, le prince à cheval | English | TV miniseries | |||
| Verlassen Sie bitte Ihren Mann! | Pertussini | German | ||||
| 1995 | Brennendes Herz | Gustav Regler | German | |||
| 1997 | The Lost Daughter | Rolf Sutter | English | TV film | ||
| 2000 | Auguste La Fontaine | Italian | TV film | |||
| 2001 | Oscar | German | TV film | |||