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Joachim Fuchsberger

Joachim"Blacky"Fuchsberger(pronounced[ˈjoːaxɪmˈfʊksbɛʁɡɐ];11 March 1927 – 11 September 2014) was a German actor and television host, best known to a wide German-speaking audience as one of the recurring actors in variousEdgar Wallace movies(often a Detective Inspector withScotland Yard). In the English-speaking world, he was sometimes credited as Akim Berg or Berger.

Joachim Fuchsberger
Fuchsberger in 2008
Born(1927-03-11)11 March 1927
Zuffenhausen,Württemberg,Weimar Germany
Died11 September 2014(2014-09-11)(aged 87)
Grünwald,Bavaria,Germany
Other names"Blacky" Fuchsberger
Occupation(s)Actor, television host
Years active1953–2013
Spouse(s)Gitta Lind(1951–1953) (divorced)
Gundula Korte (1954–his death) (1 son)

Life and career

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Fuchsberger was born in Zuffenhausen, today a district ofStuttgart,and was a member of the obligatoryHitler Youth.[1]DuringWorld War II,at the age of 16, he was trained as aFallschirmjäger,combat instructorand sent to theEastern Frontwhere he was wounded. He was captured in a hospital inStralsundby theRed Armyand came into Soviet captivity and later in American and British captivity. Because of this turbulent time of his youth in Second World War, he never obtained a school diploma.[1]In 1946, he worked as acoal minerfor the British inRecklinghausen.His nickname Blacky hails from that time.

After his release, he worked as an engineer fortypesettingand printing machines in the family business and later in a publishing house inDüsseldorf.In 1949, he was advertising manager of the German Building Exhibition inNuremberg.From 1950 to 1952, he was spokesman at the radio station in Munich and newsreel spokesman. In 1951, he married the pop singerGitta Lind,from whom he divorced after two years. In 1954 he married the radio technician and actress Gundula Korte (born 24 March 1930), with whom he has a son. In the same year he had his breakthrough playing "Gunner Asch" in the three-part war film08/15film series, based on the novel byHans Hellmut Kirst.

After several war films, he starred in the 1959 filmDer Frosch mit der Maske(The Frog with the Mask) playing amateur detective Richard Gordon. More than 3.2 million visitors saw the movie in the cinema. The surprising success laid the foundation for many other film adaptations of novels byEdgar Wallace.

After this success, he played the detective in another 12 Edgar Wallace films: 1960 – Chief Inspector Long inThe Terrible People;1961 – Inspector Larry Holt inThe Dead Eyes of London;1961 – Insurance Agent Jack Tarling inThe Devil's Daffodil;1961 – Inspector Mike Dorn inThe Strange Countess;1962 – Inspector Wade inThe Inn on the River;1963 – Clifford Lynne inDer Fluch der gelben Schlange(The Curse of the Yellow Snake); 1963 – Estate manager Dick Alford inThe Black Abbot;1964 – Investigator Johnny Gray inRoom 13;1964 – Inspector Higgins inDer Hexer(The Warlock); 1967 – Inspector Higgins inThe Monk with the Whip;1968 – Inspector Higgins inIm Banne des Unheimlichen(Under the Spell of the Sinister); 1972 – Inspector Barth inWhat Have You Done to Solange?.

Fuchsberger was the stadium announcer for the opening and closing ceremonies of the1972 Summer Olympicsin Munich. During the closing ceremony, it was suspected that a hijacked passenger aircraft was on its way to the stadium. Fuchsberger, fearing a panic, decided against evacuation. This decision was vindicated when the original suspicion turned out to have been false.

In the late 1960s, Fuchsberger co-founded a real estate company that went bankrupt in a short time. At 42, he had lost his entire fortune, had to sell his villa and sat on a mountain of debt. With the help of his wife, Gundula, good friends and tireless work, he managed to discharge the debt and to start a new existence.

In 1978, he was bitten by achimpanzeeduring a TV show and fell seriously ill with hepatitis B. He spent 4 months at the quarantine station and suffered through a depression but recovered. He withdrew from film and television work in the late 1970s and concentrated on his stage career. In the late 1990s he started reappearing in some television movies, which after a break he continued from the late 2000s until his death.

In 1984, he was the first German ambassador forUNICEF.On 13 November 2006, he was awarded the Bavarian State Medal for Social Services for those activities.[2]Since 2009, Fuchsberger is member of the Board of Trustees of the2011 FIFA Women's World Cupand co-patron of the volunteer program for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2011.[3][citation needed]

His son,Thomas[de](1957–2010), was a composer and drowned inKulmbachon 14 October 2010.[4]Late in life, Fuchsberger lived inGrünwaldnear Munich and inSandy Bay,Hobart, Tasmania. He held Australian citizenship together with his original German one.[5]He died of organ failure at his German home in Grünwald on 11 September 2014.[6]

Awards

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Selected filmography

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TV shows

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  • 1960–1961:Nur nicht nervös werden(ARD)
  • 1973–1975:Der heiße Draht(SWF)
  • 1975–1976:Spiel mit mir(SWF)
  • 1977–1986:Auf Los geht's los[de](SWF)
  • 1980–1991:Heut' abend(ARD)
  • 1990–1994:Ja oder Nein(ARD)

Documentation

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  • 1988–2003:Terra Australis(20 films by Fuchsberger about people and landscapes of his adopted country)
  • 2011:Germaine Damar – Der tanzende Stern(TV) – Regie:Michael Wenk(Fuchsberger as interviewee commemorating his former film partnerGermaine Damar)

Audiobooks

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  • 2011:Altwerden ist nichts für Feiglinge.[Growing old is not for cowards] Publisher: Gütersloher Verlagshaus (Biography, read by Joachim Fuchsberger),ISBN978-3-579-07634-8.

References

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  1. ^abVgl.Setzen, Sechs! – Schulgeschichten aus Deutschland (1/3). Verlorene Kindheit.Documentary from Dora Heinze for SWR. German first broadcast on 8 December 2005 (German)
  2. ^Joachim Fuchsberger Biografie,Who's Who(German)
  3. ^"DFB - Deutscher Fußball-Bund e.V. - Newsmeldung".Archived fromthe originalon 8 September 2009.Retrieved17 July2017.
  4. ^"'Blacky' Fuchsberger trauert um Sohn",Süddeutsche Zeitung,15 October 2010(in German)
  5. ^Mike Jenkinson (20 September 2014)."Tassie loses a friend with star qualities".The Mercury.Hobart.
  6. ^TV-Legende: Joachim Fuchsberger ist tot(Spiegel Online,11 September 2014)
  7. ^vgl.Kriegskinder – kurz vorgestellt Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger – Jahrgang 1927,"Porträt: Joachim" Blacky "Fuchsberger | DasErste.de".Archived fromthe originalon 22 March 2009.Retrieved15 October2010.(German)
  8. ^Fuchsberger Biografie bei Steffi-line.de(German)
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