ROME, APR 9 - German-Italian actor Mario Adorf has died at the age of 95, Dpa reported Thursday citing his manager.
Adorf, a key character actor in countless hit German and Italian films, including cinema d'essai, was born in Zurich to a German mother and Italian father on September 8, 1930.
He had recently fallen ill, his wife said.
He died in Paris.
Adord was considered to be one of the great veteran character actors of European cinema.
In Germany, he was one of the leading film and television stars for decades.
From 1954 to 2023, he appeared in both leading and supporting roles in over 200 film and television productions, ranging from spaghetti westerns to the 1979 Oscar-winning film The Tin Drum.
Adorf worked with directors including Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Corbucci, and Claude Chabrol.
He was also the author of several successful mostly autobiographical books.
Adorf was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the illegitimate child of Matteo Menniti, an Italian surgeon and Alice Adorf, a German medical assistant. He grew up in his maternal grandfather's hometown, Mayen, where he was raised by his unmarried mother.
His breakthrough came in 1957 with the lead role of the alleged murderer Bruno Lüdke in Robert Siodmak's film The Devil Strikes at Night, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He gained fame in Europe, and particularly Germany, and also made appearances in international films, including Ten Little Indians and Smilla's Sense of Snow.
Adorf played a wide variety of roles, but was best known for his portrayals of villains who could be charismatic or relatable to the audience.
During the 1960s, he appeared in several Karl May film adaptations and Spaghetti Westerns.
He starred with Barbara Bouchet in Milano Calibro 9 in 1972.
Adorf also played a small role in the 1982 BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Smiley's People as a German club owner.
He also appeared in a number of Italian movies, including mafia movies such as The Italian Connection.
During New German Cinema, he worked with Volker Schlöndorff on The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) and The Tin Drum (1979).
In the latter film, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, he portrayed the role of family father Alfred Matzerath.
In 1981, he played the role of Schukert in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lola (1981).
Adorf was very successful with his starring roles in a number of German TV miniseries directed by Dieter Wedel, including Der große Bellheim (1992), Der Schattenmann (1995), and Die Affäre Semmeling (2002).
Also popular was his portrayal of an adhesive manufacturer in Helmut Dietl's satirical TV show Kir Royal – Aus dem Leben eines Klatschreporters (1985).
Adorf expressed regret that he declined roles in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961).
He later worked with Wilder on Fedora (1978), portraying a hotel manager.
Adorf also turned down the role of General Mapache in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), because he felt the character was too violent.
He had previously appeared in Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965) as an American sergeant alongside Charlton Heston.
Adorf also occassionally worked as a voice actor. In 1996, he provided the German dubbing voice for the character Draco in Dragonheart, a role performed by Sean Connery.
In the 1960s, Adorf married Lis Verhoeven and the couple had a child, Stella, prior to their divorce.In 1985, he married Monique Faye.
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