| Ulrich Mühe | |
| Landscape: | yes |
| Birth Name: | Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe |
| Birth Date: | 1953 6, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Grimma, East Germany |
| Death Place: | Walbeck, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany |
| Yearsactive: | 1979–2007 |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 5, including Anna Maria |
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe (pronounced as /de/; 20 June 1953 – 22 July 2007) was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann (Captain) Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006), for which he received the gold award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, at the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Awards); and the Best Actor Award at the 2006 European Film Awards.
After leaving school, Mühe was employed as a construction worker and a border guard at the Berlin Wall. He then turned to acting, and from the late 1970s into the 1980s appeared in numerous plays, becoming a star of the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin. He was active in politics and denounced Communist rule in East Germany in a memorable address at the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November 1989 shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. After German reunification, he continued to appear in a large number of films, television programmes and theatre productions. In Germany he was particularly known for playing the lead role of Dr. Robert Kolmaar in the long-running forensic crime series Der letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness, 1998–2007).
The son of a furrier,[1] Mühe was born on 20 June 1953 in Grimma,[2] Bezirk Leipzig (part of present-day Saxony), in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). After leaving school, he trained as a construction worker, then did compulsory military service in the Nationale Volksarmee (National People's Army) as a border guard at the Berlin Wall.[3] He was relieved of duty after contracting stomach ulcers;[4] possibly due to stress, according to observers, and also suggested that it marked the beginnings of the stomach cancer that would eventually lead to his death.[5] [6]
He then turned to acting, and studied at the Theaterhochschule "Hans Otto" Leipzig from 1975 to 1979.[7] He appeared in his first professional stage role in 1979, as Lyngstrand in Ibsen's Fruen fra havet (The Lady from the Sea) at the Städtisches Theater in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). He followed this by appearing in a production of Macbeth by playwright and director Heiner Müller at the Volksbühne in East Berlin.
In 1983, at Müller's invitation he joined the ensemble of East Berlin's Deutsches Theater, and became its star due to his versatility in comic and serious roles, appearing in productions such as Goethe's Egmont (1986), Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Lessing's Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise, 1988).[4] He took the lead role of Hamlet in both Shakespeare's play and Heiner Müller's Die Hamletmaschine (Hamletmachine, 1989). Mühe later said: "Theatre was the only place in the GDR where people weren't lied to. For us actors it was an island. We could dare to criticise."[8] On screen, he co-starred with his second wife Jenny Gröllmann in Herman Zschoche's film (Half of Life, 1984) about the German lyric poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843).
Mühe played a leading role in organizing the demonstrations that took place prior to the reunification of Germany. He often gave public readings from Walter Janka's essay Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit (Difficulties with the Truth, 1989) at the Deutsches Theater, before the book was permitted to be published in East Germany. On 4 November 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in front of half a million people during the Alexanderplatz demonstration, he declared the Communists' monopoly on power to be invalid. In the same year, he became internationally known after playing, next to Armin Mueller-Stahl and Klaus Maria Brandauer, the leading role in Bernhard Wicki's Das Spinnennetz (Spider's Web, based on the expressionist, fragmentary novel of the same name by Austrian writer Joseph Roth) the right-wing lieutenant Lohse who sleeps and murders his way to professional success in the early Weimar Republic following a near fatal injury during the Wilhelmshaven mutiny of 29 October 1918.
After German reunification, he continued to appear in a large number of films, television programmes and theatre productions in Germany and abroad. He proved his ability to take on comic roles in Schtonk! (1991), an Oscar-nominated satire about the Hitler Diaries hoax,[9] and showed his more serious side in Michael Haneke's Benny's Video (1992), Das Schloss (The Castle, 1996) (an adaptation of Kafka's The Castle (1922)) and Funny Games (1997). In the latter film, Mühe and his third wife Susanne Lothar played a husband and wife held captive in their holiday cabin by two psychotic young men who force them to play sadistic "games" with one another.
In the 2000s, Mühe played Nazis in a sequence of films. He portrayed Joseph Goebbels in Goebbels und Geduldig (Goebbels and Geduldig, 2001); Dr. Josef Mengele in Amen. (2002), a film by Costa Gavras; and was to have played Klaus Barbie in an upcoming feature. His last film was the comedy Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (My Führer: The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler, 2007), in which he played Prof. Adolf Israel Grünbaum, an actor hired to give Hitler lessons.
In 2006, he appeared at the Barbican Arts Centre in London in Zerbombt, Thomas Ostermeier's German production of Sarah Kane's Blasted, playing a middle-aged journalist whose encounter with a young girl leads to pandemonium in a Leeds hotel room.
Mühe was known in Germany for playing the brilliant but eccentric pathologist Dr. Robert Kolmaar in 73 episodes of the forensic crime serial Der letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness, 1998–2007), for which he was awarded the prize for Beste/r Schauspieler/in in einer Serie (Best Actor or Actress in a TV Series) at the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (German Television Awards) in 2005.
To English-speaking audiences, Mühe was probably best known for portraying Hauptmann (Captain) Gerd Wiesler in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007. The film is set in the mid-1980s, and Wiesler is a Stasi agent who is assigned to bug and conduct surveillance of the apartment of an East German playwright, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and his girlfriend, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). However, he becomes disillusioned about the necessity of monitoring the couple for national security reasons after discovering that the government minister who ordered the surveillance did so for sexual rather than political motives. Gradually, Wiesler's heart moves from contempt and envy to compassion. For his performance, in 2006 Mühe received, among other things, the Beste darstellerische Leistung – Männliche Hauptrolle (Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role), Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film awards, the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Awards); and the Best Actor Award at the European Film Awards.
The Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur (Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, known in short as "Stiftung Aufarbeitung"), the government-funded organization tasked with examining and reappraising East Germany's Communist dictatorship, said of Mühe: "Through his impressive performance... Ulrich Mühe sensitized an audience of millions to the Stasi's machinations and their consequences." The statement added that Mühe had been an active and valued participant in the foundation's events.
Mühe was already seriously ill at the award ceremony in Los Angeles in February 2007 when Das Leben der Anderen was awarded its Oscar, and flew back to Germany hours later for an urgent stomach operation. In an article in Die Welt dated 21 July 2007, Mühe discussed his diagnosis of stomach cancer which had put his acting career on hold; he died the following day.[10] On 25 July 2007, he was buried in his mother's village of Walbeck in the Landkreis (rural district) of Börde, Saxony-Anhalt.[11]
Mühe was married three times. He was first married to dramaturge Annegret Hahn; the couple had two sons: Andreas, a Berlin-based photographer, and Konrad, a painter. His second marriage was in 1984 to the actress Jenny Gröllmann, after they fell in love while acting together in the TV film Die Poggenpuhls (The Poggenpuhls) in that year. Mühe and Gröllmann had a daughter, Anna Maria Mühe, who is also an actress; and he was stepfather to Gröllmann's daughter Jeanne, a make-up artist.[1] [12]
After German reunification, Mühe allegedly discovered evidence in his Stasi file that he had been under surveillance not only by four of his fellow actors in the East Berlin theatre, but also by his wife Gröllmann. The file held detailed records of meetings that Gröllmann, who was registered as an "Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter" (unofficial collaborator), had with her controller from 1979 to 1989.[13] This mirrored the plot of Das Leben der Anderen as in the film pressure exerted by the Stasi on the playwright's girlfriend makes her betray him as the author of an exposé of covered-up GDR suicide rates. Mühe and Gröllmann divorced in 1990.[1] In a book accompanying the film, Mühe spoke about the sense of betrayal he felt when he found out about his former wife's alleged Stasi role. However, Gröllmann's real-life controller later claimed he had made up many of the details in the file and that the actress had been unaware that she was speaking to a Stasi agent. After a highly public and acrimonious battle in the courts, Gröllmann, who died in August 2006, won an injunction preventing the book's publication. Mühe's response when asked how he prepared for his role in Das Leben der Anderen was, "I remembered."
At the time of his death, Mühe was married to his third wife, actress Susanne Lothar, and living in Berlin with her and their two children, Sophie Marie and Jakob. Mühe and Lothar starred together in Mühe's last film, Nemesis (2010),[14] which deals with a couple's troubled relationship. However, Lothar, who died in 2012, launched a lawsuit to block the film from release for nearly three years, apparently because she felt that it would cast the couple in a bad light.[15]
In addition to the awards mentioned elsewhere in this article, Mühe was conferred the following awards:
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Olle Henry | Junger Mann | Ulrich Weiß | ||
| 1985 | The Woman and the Stranger | Revolutionär | Rainer Simon | ||
| Friedrich Hölderlin | Herrmann Zschoche | ||||
| 1989 | Das Spinnennetz | Theodor Lohse | Bernhard Wicki | ||
| Hard Days, Hard Nights | Flimmer | ||||
| 1990 | Sehnsucht | Sieghart | Jürgen Brauer | ||
| 1992 | Schtonk! | Dr. Wieland | Helmut Dietl | ||
| Benny's Video | Vater | Michael Haneke | |||
| 1994 | The Blue One | Karl Kaminski | Lienhard Wawrzyn | ||
| 1995 | Dr. Heinrich Gützkow | Peter Timm | |||
| 1996 | Dr. Jochen Schuster | Carlo Rola | |||
| Engelchen | Kommissar | Helke Misselwitz | |||
| 1997 | Funny Games | Georg | Michael Haneke | ||
| Die Healthy | Hugo Wallner | Gert Steinheimer | |||
| The Castle | K. | Michael Haneke | TV film | ||
| 1998 | Eschbach | Peter Fratzscher | |||
| Rider of the Flames | Jacob Gontard | Nina Grosse | |||
| 1999 | Straight Shooter | Markus Paufler | Thomas Bohn | ||
| 2001 | Goebbels und Geduldig | Harry Geduldig / Joseph Goebbels | Kai Wessel | ||
| 2002 | Amen. | Doctor | Costa-Gavras | ||
| 2003 | Spy Sorge | Eugen Ott | Masahiro Shinoda | ||
| Hamlet_X | Claudius Müller | Herbert Fritsch | |||
| 2005 | Schneeland | Knövel | Hans W. Geißendörfer | ||
| 2006 | The Lives of Others | Hpt. Gerd Wiesler | Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | ||
| 2007 | My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler | Adolf Grünbaum | Dani Levy | ||
| 2010 | Nemesis | Robert | Nicole Mosleh | Posthumous release, (final film role) |
| width=19% | Year(s) of appearance | width=27% | Film or series | width=27% | Role | Awards and nominations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Der Mann und sein Name (The Man and His Name) | |||||
| 1984 | Die Poggenpuhls (The Poggenpuhls) | Leo | ||||
| 1986 | Das Buschgespenst (The Bush Ghost) | Kaufmann Strauch | ||||
| 1987 | Die erste Reihe (The First Row) | Rudolf Schwarz | ||||
| 1988 | Nadine, meine Liebe (Nadine, My Love) | Oberleutnant (Senior Lieutenant) Stein | ||||
| 1988 (1 episode) | Polizeiruf 110 (Emergency Call 110) (1971–present) "Flüssige Waffe" ("Liquid Weapon") | Kegel | ||||
| 1989 | Die gläserne Fackel (The Glass Torch) | Maxi Steinhüter | ||||
| 1990 | Der kleine Herr Friedemann (Little Herr Friedemann) | Johannes Friedemann | ||||
| 1991 | (The End of Innocence) | Julian Green | ||||
| 1991 | (The Age of the Fish) | Lehrer (teacher) | ||||
| 1993 (1 episode) | Extralarge Diamonds | Father Enrique | ||||
| 1993 | Das letzte U-Boot (The Last U-Boat) | Lt. Cmdr. Gerber | ||||
| 1993 | (Wehner – The Untold Story) | Selbstmörder (suicide victim) | ||||
| 1994 | Geschäfte (Business) | Sturm | ||||
| 1995 | (...Next Week brings Peace) | |||||
| 1995 | Nadja – Heimkehr in die Fremde (Nadja – Homecoming Among Foreigners) | Sergej | ||||
| 1995 | Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) | Pfarrer (Minister) Ohlbaum | ||||
| 1995 (1 episode) | Rosa Roth (1994–2006) "Lügen" ("Lies") | |||||
| 1995 | Tödliches Schweigen (Deadly Silence) | Christian Plache | ||||
| 1996 | Das tödliche Auge (The Deadly Eye) | Stefan | ||||
| 1996 (1 episode) | Tatort (Crime Scene) (1970–present) "Die Abrechnung" ("The Reckoning") | Peter Fuchs | ||||
| 1998 | 36 Stunden Angst (36 Hours) | Rudolph | ||||
| 1998 (1 episode) | Siska (1998–present) "Tod einer Würfelspielerin" ("Death of a Female Dice-Thrower") | |||||
| 1998–2007 (73 episodes) | Der letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness) | Dr. Robert Kolmaar |
| |||
| 1999 (1 episode) | Tatort (Crime Scene) (1970–present) "Traumhaus" ("Dream House") | Friedel Hebbel | ||||
| 1999 | Todesengel (Angel of Death) | Dr. Leon Stein | ||||
| 2001 | Dreimal Leben (Life Times Three) | Henri | ||||
| 2003 | Alles Samba (Everything's Samba) | Gerd | ||||
| 2003 | Hamlet_X | Claudius Müller | ||||
| 2003 | (In the Shadow of Power) | Günter Gaus | ||||
| 2004 | (Hunger for Life) | Jochen Hensel | ||||
| 2006 | Das Geheimnis von St. Ambrose (The Secret of St. Ambrose) | Professor Nicolas Cramer | ||||
| 2006 | Peer Gynt | Der Knopfgiesser (The Button Moulder) |
Some information in this table was obtained from . Retrieved on 23 September 2007.
| width=19% | Year(s) of appearance | width=27% | Production | width=27% | Role | Awards and nominations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Fruen fra havet (The Lady from the Sea) by Henrik Ibsen Städtisches Theater, Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) | Lyngstrand | ||||
| [Date uncertain] (?1979–1986) | Macbeth by William Shakespeare Volksbühne, East Berlin | |||||
| 18 November 1983 | Gespenster (Ghosts) by Henrik Ibsen Kammerspiele (Chamber Play Theatre), Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | Osvald Alving | ||||
| 1986 | Egmont by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | Egmont | ||||
| [Date uncertain] ?1986–1989 | Hamlet by William Shakespeare Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | Hamlet | ||||
| [Date uncertain] ?1986–1989 | Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | |||||
| [Date uncertain] ?1986–1989 | Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | Peer Gynt | ||||
| 1989 | Die Hamletmaschine (Hamletmachine) by Heiner Müller Deutsches Theater, East Berlin | Hamlet | ||||
| 1990 | Die Jüdin von Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo) by Franz Grillparzer Salzburg Festival, Salzburg, Austria | König Alfons (King Alfonso, Alfonso VIII) | ||||
| end-1990s | Dreimal Leben (Life Times Three) by Yasmina Reza Burgtheater, Vienna, Austria | Henri | ||||
| 1999 | Gesäubert (Cleansed) by Sarah Kane Hamburg | Der Arzt (The Doctor) | ||||
| 2003 | Wittgenstein Incorporated Vienna Festwochen (Vienna Festival) | |||||
| 2005 | Zerbombt (Blasted) by Sarah Kane Berlin | Ian | ||||
| 2006 | Zerbombt (Blasted)[17] by Sarah Kane Barbican Arts Centre, London | Ian | ||||
| [Date unknown] | Clavigo by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Clavigo | ||||
| [Date unknown] | Philotas by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing | Philotas | ||||
| [Date unknown] | Der Traum, ein Leben (The Dream, a Life) by Franz Grillparzer | Sigismundis |
| Year(s) of appearance | Book | Awards and nominations | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Ein Monat in Dachau (One Month in Dachau, 1992) by Vladimir Sorokin; translated from the Russian by Peter Urban | ||
| 1999 | Ich bin eine Welt: Briefe und Gedichte – eine Collage (I am a World: Letters and Poems – a Collage) by Georg Trakl | ||
| 2000 | Einen Dichter denken – LAUT (A Poet Thinks – ALOUD) by Heiner Müller | ||
| 2002 | Adler und Engel (Eagles and Angels) by Juli Zeh | ||
| 2002 | Die Kinder (The Children) by Peter Hacks | ||
| 2002 | Reise gegen den Wind (Journey Against the Wind, 2000) by Peter Härtling | ||
| 2003 | Südkurier (Southern Mail, 1929) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | ||
| 2003 | Wind, Sand und Sterne (Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | ||
| 2004 | Ein unbekannter Freund (A Friend of Unknown Quantity) by Ivan Bunin (read by Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe) | ||
| 2004 | "Ich küsse Dich vielmals...": Liebesbriefe ("I Kiss You Many Times...": Love Letters) (read by Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe) | ||
| 2005 | Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince, 1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | ||
| 2005 | Weihnachtswünsche: Die Weihnachtsgeschichte nach Lukas und die schönsten Weihnachtsgedichte (Christmas Wishes: The History of Christmas according to Luke and the Most Beautiful Christmas Poems) by Joseph von Eichendorff[18] (told by Otto Mellies, Ulrich Mühe and Otto Sander) | ||
| 2006 | Shakespeares Hamlet und alles, was ihn für uns zum kulturellen Gedächtnis macht (Shakespeare's Hamlet and Everything that Makes it Cultural Memory For Us) (read by Dietrich Schwanitz, Ulrich Mühe and Hanns Zischler) | ||
| 2006 | Von allem Anfang an (From All Beginning) by Christoph Hein | ||
| [Date unknown] | Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us, 1995) by Thomas Brussig | ||
| [Date unknown] | Das kalte Herz (The Cold Heart, 1826) by Wilhelm Hauff | ||
| [Date unknown] | Der Katze, die immer nur ihre eigenen Wege ging (The Cats, which in Each Case Went Their Own Ways, ?1985) by Horst Hawemann | ||
| [Date unknown] | Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke, 1906) by Rainer Maria Rilke |