Berlin - German actor Günther Kaufmann has died, he
collapsed on a Berlin street on Thursday May 10, 2012, a police spokesman
confirmed on Friday evening, in a report in the "Bild" newspaper. He
died while walking in the Grunewald district of heart failure, the newspaper
said. The actor, who in 2009 went to RTL "jungle camp" and at one
time was wrongly imprisoned for murder was 64 years old.
"The White Negro of Hasenbergl" - the title of
his autobiography - grew up the son of a U.S. Army soldier and a German mother
in Hasenbergl quarter of Munich. In the 70s and 80s, he starred in 16
Rainer-Werner Fassbinder films, including "Berlin Alexanderplatz," "The
Marriage of Maria Braun" and "Querelle". In the '90s he had
roles in TV series including "Derrick" and "The Old Man".
Even his merchant life at times resembled a detective
story: for the love of his terminally ill wife he made a false confession and
was found guilty in 2002 for the murder of his tax adviser and was sentenced to 15
years in prison. Almost three years he sat in jail until the real culprit was
arrested. The actor then recanted his confession and was acquitted in a retrial
in Augsburg. It turned out that the real culprit had brutally attacked the
accountant on behalf of the wife of a merchant now deceased.
After his release, he played in two films including
the animated series "Vicky the Viking" and Michael "Bully"
Herbig's, the "Terrible Sven". Recently he was seen in "Turkish
for Beginners - The Movie" on the big screen. In 2009, Kaufmann was a
participant in one episode of the fourth season of "I'm a Celebrity - Get
Me Out of Here". He tried out for a role in an upcoming 2013 feature film
about a businessman living in theaters. The father of two grown children
himself, he wanted the lead role.
Kaufmann appeared in one Euro-western, director Rainer
Werner Fassbinder’s “Whity” (1971) as Whity.
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