Actor Bruno Ganz who played Hitler in Oscar-nominated ‘Downfall’ dies at 77
ZURICH: Bruno Ganz, the Swiss actor who portrayed Adolf Hitler in Oscar-nominated film “Downfall” and the kindly grandfather in “Heidi”, died of cancer at his home in Zurich on Saturday aged 77, his agent said.
Ganz had been active in German language theatre, film and television for more than 50 years and was the holder of the Iffland-Ring, the most important award for German-speaking actors.
“One of the most important actors of our time goes, his brilliant work remains. We mourn with the family and friends of Bruno Ganz,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a tweet.
Born to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother, Ganz grew up in Zurich and decided to become an actor after a friendly lighting technician allowed him into a local theater.
It was not an easy path, with his family opposed to his career choice. “As a boy I was morbidly shy,” he recalled in one interview.
As a teenager Ganz dropped out of school to attend evening acting classes in Zurich where he also worked as a bookseller and trained as a paramedic.
In the early 1960s Ganz left Switzerland to work in theatre in Germany, and from the 1970s onwards he acted at the Berlinbased Schaubuehne theatre.
He earned praise for his performances, while also branching out into cinema, where he worked with renowned German directors like Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Volker Schloendorff.
In 1987 Ganz played an angel called Damiel in Wenders’ film “Wings of Desire”, entitled “Sky Over Berlin” in German, who becomes mortal so he can experience earthly pleasures.
One of his most famous roles came when he played Hitler in the 2004 film “Downfall”, which dramatised the last days of the Nazi dictator in his Berlin bunker, one of Germany’s first attempts to characterise the Fuehrer in film.
Ganz portrayed Hitler as a ranting and delusional madman, but also as a fatherly figure suffering from Parkinson’s disease who fussed about the welfare of his secretaries. Scenes of him ranting furiously at his staff spawned a wave of internet parodies and memes.
Immersing himself in that role affected the actor, who later admitted he had been haunted by his portrayal for a very long time. — Reuters