Engaging performer who helped found Berlin's experimental theater company Schaubuhne with director Peter Stein in 1970. Ganz's screen acting career began with Eric Rohmer's "The Marquise of O" (1976) and has continued through films by some of Europe's best directors, including Wim Wenders, Claude Goretta and Alain Tanner. Best known as Damiel, the angel longing to be human, in Wenders' "Wings of Desire" (1987).
Family
-
Son: Daniel Ganz. Born in 1972; mother, Sabine Ganz
Significant Others
-
Wife: Sabine Ganz. Married in 1965; separated
Milestones
-
1960 First film role, in "Der Herr mit der schwarzen Melone/The Man in the Black Derby"
-
1970 Co-founded Schaubuhne theater company (with Peter Stein)
-
1972 Performed in the Salzburg Festival premier of Thomas Bernhard’s "Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige"
-
1976 Appeared in Eric Rohmer's "The Marquise of O"
-
1976 Cinematic breakthrough in the film, "Sommergäste"
-
1977 Cast in "The American Friend," his first film with director Wim Wenders
-
1978 Appeared in "The Boys From Brazil" opposite Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier
-
1979 Starred opposite Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s "Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht/Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night"
-
1981 Cast in Volker Schlondorff's "Circle of Deceit" starring Hanna Schygulla and Gila von Weitershausen
-
1983 Appeared in "Krieg und Frieden/War and Peace"
-
1987 Reunited with director Wim Wenders for "Der Himmel über Berlin/Wings of Desire"
-
1989 Appeared with Bridget Fonda in "Strapless"
-
1993 Third film with Wim Wenders, "In weiter Ferne, so nah!/Faraway, So Close!" a sequel to "Wings of Desire"
-
1994 Cast in "L'Absence/The Absence" written and directed by Peter Handke
-
1998 Cast in the Theo Angelopoulos directed, "Mia aioniotita kai mia mera/Eternity and a Day"
-
2000 Performed for 13 hours straight as the lead in Peter Stein’s production of "Goethe's Faust" (Parts I and II)
-
2004 Cast in the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" directed by Jonathan Demme
-
2004 Portrayed Adolf Hitler in Bernd Eichinger’s much acclaimed film "Der Untergang - Hitler und das Ende des Dritten Reichs/The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich"
-
2005 Cast in the ABC TV movie, "Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II"
-
2007 Cast in "Youth Without Youth" Francis Ford Coppola's first directed film in ten years