BERLIN (AP) - Horst Buchholz, a German actor whose Hollywood credits include a communist heartthrob in Billy Wilder’s Cold War satire One, Two, Three, died Monday in Berlin, a hospital said. He was 69. Buchholz, who was recovering from a broken thighbone, died in intensive care at the Charite hospital, spokeswoman Kerstin Ullrich said. She declined to provide further details.
Dubbed the James Dean of German films for the rebellious teens he played in the late 1950s, Buchholz moved to the United States and scored his first Hollywood hit with a role in The Magnificent Seven, the 1960 western with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and James Coburn. The next year, director Billy Wilder cast him alongside James Cagney in One, Two, Three. Set around the building of the Berlin Wall, the biting comedy features Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive who learns his boss’ daughter has secretly married a communist, played by Buchholz. He also made movies in Britain, Spain, Italy and France, and played a Nazi concentration camp doctor in Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning 1997 film Life is Beautiful.
“One, Two, Three” is really very good, and very funny…it had the unfortunate timing factor in that the Berlin Wall went up right about the time the film was released, making a comedy about East/West Berlin a hard sell, to say the least.
Buchholz also did quite a few made for tv movies in Germany as well, and was always a quality actor to watch, even in films that were less than gems.
Oh. Never mind. He was in The Great Waltz, which was about Strauss. I did see that one too, but I guess it was another movie I saw that was about Grieg. Did it have Florence Henderson in it? Let me go check…
Ah! Yes! I scare myself with this stream-of-consciousness movie shit. Song of Norway. She plays Grieg’s wife.