Wolfgang Kieling
Wolfgang Kieling was a German actor.
Biography
Kieling's parents were amateur actors at a theatre club, where he made his stage debut as a child. At the age of six, he recorded his first record as a child soprano, followed by a career in children's radio, where he voiced 'Wölfchen' in the popular radio series "Kunterbunt", and made his feature film debut in Maria, die Magd, directed by Veit Harlan. He continued acting on stage and in films before being conscripted to serve in the German Army during World War II in 1942, where he was severely wounded and captured in 1945. He was held in a Russian POW camp until 1949, during which he organized plays at various prison camps.After his release,Kieling started appearing regularly again on stage and in film in both West and East Germany throughout the 1950's and 1960's, and eventually was offered a role in a major American film production, Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, where he played Gromek, an East German agent brutally slain by Paul Newman's character. He also played Gromek's brother in a scene that was deleted from the final print.
Appearing in a Hitchcock film did not lead to other roles in Hollywood, though Kieling had a small role in $, starring Warren Beatty, and he also appeared in other European and English-language productions, such as the British films The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, and Amsterdam Affair, where he portrayed the fictional Dutch detective Van der Valk several years before Barry Foster was cast in the same role for the British TV series. He did much work on West German TV, including the first episode of Derrick. The best of his later roles was in the film Out of Order, originally titled Abwärts.
Early on, Kieling also became a dubbing actor for West German dubs of foreign films, serving as the standard dubbing voice of Glenn Ford, Frank Sinatra, and he also dubbed Charlton Heston in the first part of the Planet of the Apes franchise. In Disneys Alice in Wonderland, he dubbed the Mad Hatter. Thanks to his voice's similarity to that of Gert Günther Hoffmann, he would also replace Hoffmann as the dubbing voice of Paul Newman when Hoffmann was not available. On TV, he was especially known as the German voice of Bert from Sesame Street.
In October 1952, his wife Jola Jobst, whom he had married in 1950, committed suicide.
In March 1968, he moved from West Germany to East Germany because of West German support for the United States, which he became disillusioned with after witnessing the Watts riots firsthand during the filming of Torn Curtain. After defecting, he called the United States "the most dangerous enemy of humanity in the world today" with its "crimes against the Negro and the people of Vietnam". He eventually returned to West Germany in 1970.
Kieling died in 1985 in Hamburg after a stomach operation he had undergone after being treated for cancer.
Selected filmography
Child actor
Die lustigen Weiber - Bit Part Maria the Maid - Christoph - Marias little brotherDie Kreutzersonate - WassjaHeimweh - Robby, Sohn des BankpräsidentenWomen for Golden Hill - Pat' - Der Solist im SchulchorThe Journey to Tilsit - Klein FranzSeitensprünge - HotelboyFalstaff in Vienna - Loisl - Lehrling bei Meister SturmHerz geht vor Anker - SchiffsjungeSomewhere in Berlin - Bürolehrling bei Dr. Horn- '
Actor
Genesung - Friedel WalterDamals in Paris - RenéDuped Till Doomsday - Gefreiter LickThe Man Who Couldn't Say No - Untersuchungsrichter' - Dr. SteinAgatha, Stop That Murdering! - Philip- '