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Elisabeth Rohm will next be seen in the Roger Ailes biopic FAIR AND BALANCED for Lionsgate and director Jay Roach, portraying Fox News host Martha MacCallum, as well as Ted Melfi's THE STARLING opposite Melissa McCarthy.

Elisabeth recently wrapped production on the Lifetime feature FAMILY PICTURES opposite Justina Machado and previously co-starred in David O. Russell's JOY opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. This was her second collaboration with David following the huge success of AMERICAN HUSTLE in which she had a pivotal role opposite Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Amy Adams (the film won numerous accolades for its ensemble cast including the coveted SAG Award and both films were nominated for Oscars.)

Elisabeth also had a key role in TRIBES OF PALOS VERDES opposite Jennifer Garner for IFC Films and Relativity Media. Other notable film credits include TRAFFICKED with Ashley Judd and GOING UNDER opposite Bruce Willis and Jason Momoa.

Elisabeth also has a rich body of work in the television space notably starring as "Serena Southerlyn" on LAW & ORDER for five seasons and "Kate Lockley" on The WB series ANGEL. More recently, Elisabeth co-starred with Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q on STALKER for CBS and starred opposite Eric Dance on THE LAST SHIP for TNT and Michael Bay. She also had memorable arcs on Will Arnett's Netflix series FLAKED and The CW hit show JANE THE VIRGIN.

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until reunification). At university, Wenders originally studied to become a physician before switching to philosophy before terminating his studies in 1965. Moving to Paris, he intended to become a painter.

He fell in love with the cinema but failed to gain admission to the French national film school. He supported himself as an engraver while attending movie houses. Upon his return to West Germany in 1967, he was employed by United Artists at its Düsseldorf office before he was accepted by the University of Television and Film Munich school for its autumn 1967 semester, where he remained until 1970. While attending film school, he worked as a newspaper film critic. In addition to shorts, he made a feature film as part of his studies, Summer in the City (1971).

Wenders gained recognition as part of the German New Wave of the 1970s. Other directors that were part of the New German Cinema were Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. His second feature, a film made from Peter Handke's novel Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (1972), brought him acclaim, as did Alice in den Städten (1974) and Im Lauf der Zeit (1976). It was his 1977 feature Der amerikanische Freund (1977) ("The American Friend"), starring Dennis Hopper as Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley, that represented his international breakthrough. He was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for "The American Friend", which was cited as Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review in the United States.

Francis Ford Coppola, as producer, gave Wenders the chance to direct in America, but Hammett (1982) (1982) was a critical and commercial failure. However, his American-made Paris, Texas (1984) (1984) received critical hosannas, winning three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or, and Wenders won a BAFTA for best director. "Paris, Texas" was a prelude to his greatest success, 1987's Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) ("Wings of Desire"), which he made back in Germany. The film brought him the best director award at Cannes and was a solid hit, even spawning an egregious Hollywood remake.

Wenders followed it up with a critical and commercial flop in 1991, Bis ans Ende der Welt (1991) ("Until the End of the World"), though In weiter Ferne, so nah! (1993) won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Still, is reputation as a feature film director never quite recovered in the United States after the bomb that was "Until the End of the World." Since the mid-1990s, Wenders has distinguished himself as a non-fiction filmmaker, directing several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and Pina (2011), both of which brought him Oscar nominations.

Born on 13 August 1971 in Düsseldorf, Germany, as the daughter of former German national ice hockey keeper Rainer Makatsch. After studying politics and sociology at the University of Düsseldorf for two years and an apprenticeship as dressmaker, she was hired by newborn TV music channel VIVA in 1993 and hosted popular shows such as Interaktiv (1996). Also presenting the charts show Bravo TV (1985), the media considered her the prototype of a "girlie girl". Her first appearance in a movie, Männerpension (1996), surprised the critics and slowly changed her image. In the following years, she played leading characters in successful projects such as Bin ich schön? (1998) and Gripsholm (2000). Living in London from 1999 to 2005, she also appeared in English language movies, most prominently Love Actually (2003). After another convincing performance on Margarete Steiff (2005), she is considered a respected actress anyway. In 2009 she played the main role in 'Hilde', the biographical movie about the famous German actress/singer Hildegard Knef. Her performance was a tour de force.

Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family. Her parents were Emilie (Königsberger) and Heinrich Rainer, a businessman. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a young actress, she was discovered by the legendary theater director Max Reinhardt and became part of his company in Vienna, Austria. "I was supposed to be very gifted, and he heard about me. He wanted me to be part of his theater," Rainer recounted in a 1997 interview. She joined Reinhardt's theatrical company in Vienna and spent years developing as an actress under his tutelage. As part of Reinhardt's company, Rainer became a popular stage actress in Berlin and Vienna in the early 1930s. Rainer was a natural talent for Reinhardt's type of staging, which required an impressionistic acting style.

Rainer, who made her screen debut as a teenager and appeared in three other German-language films in the early 1930s, terminated her European career when the Austrian Adolf Hitler consolidated his power in Germany. With his vicious anti-Semitism bringing about the Draconian Nuremberg Laws severely curtailing the rights of Germany's Jews, and efforts to expand that regime into the Sudetenland and Austria, Hitler and his Nazi government was proving a looming threat to European Jewry. Rainer had been spotted by a talent scout, who offered her a seven-year contract with the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The 25-year-old Rainer took the deal and emigrated to the United States.

She made her American debut in the movie Escapade (1935), replacing Myrna Loy, who was originally slated for the part. It was her luck to have William Powell as her co-star in her first Hollywood film, as he mentored her, teaching her how to act in front of the camera. Powell, whom Rainer remembers as "a dear man" and "a very fine person," lobbied MGM. boss Louis B. Mayer, reportedly telling him, "You've got to star this girl, or I'll look like an idiot."

During the making of "Escapade", Rainer met, and fell in love with, the left-wing playwright Clifford Odets, then at the height of his fame. They were married in 1937. It was not a happy union. MGM cast Rainer in support of Powell in the title role of the The Great Ziegfeld (1936), its spectacular bio-epic featuring musical numbers that recreated his "Follies" shows on Broadway. As Anna Held, Ziegfeld's common-law wife, Rainer excelled in the musical numbers, but it is for her telephone scene that she is most remembered. "The Great Ziegfeld" was a big hit and went on to win the Academy Award as Best Picture of 1936. Rainer received her first of two successive Best Actress Oscars for playing Held. The award was highly controversial at the time as she was a relative unknown and it was only her first nomination, but also because her role was so short and relatively minor that it better qualified for a supporting nomination. (While 1936 was the first year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honored supporting players, her studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, listed her as a lead player, then got out its block vote for her.) Compounding the controversy was the fact that Rainer beat out such better known and more respected actresses as Carole Lombard (her sole Oscar nomination) in My Man Godfrey (1936), previous Best Actress winner Norma Shearer (her fifth nomination) in Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Irene Dunne (her second of five unsuccessful nominations) in Theodora Goes Wild (1936). Some of the bitchery was directed toward Louis B. Mayer, whom non-MGM Academy members resented for his ability to manipulate Academy votes. Other critics of her first Oscar win claimed it was the result of voters being unduly impressed with the great budget ($2 million) of "The Great Ziegfeld" rather than great acting. Most observers agree that Rainer won her Oscar as the result of her moving and poignant performance in just one single scene in the picture, the famous telephone scene in which the broken-hearted Held congratulates Ziegfeld over the telephone on his upcoming marriage to Billie Burke while trying to retain her composure and her dignity. During the scene, the camera is entirely focused on Rainer, and she delivers a tour-de-force performance. Seventy years later, it remains one of the most famous scenes in movie history. With another actress playing Held, the scene could have been mawkish, but Rainer brought the pathos of the scene out and onto film. She based her interpretation of the scene on Jean Cocteau's play "La Voix Humaine". "Cocteau's play is just a telephone conversation about a woman who has lost her beloved to another woman", Rainer remembered. "That is the comparison. As it fit into the Ziegfeld story, that's how I wrote it. It's a daily happening, not just in Cocteau." In an interview held 60 years after the film's release, Rainer was dismissive of the performance. "I was never proud of anything", she said. "I just did it like everything else. To do a film - let me explain to you - it's like having a baby. You labor, you labor, you labor, and then you have it. And then it grows up and it grows away from you. But to be proud of giving birth to a baby? Proud? No, every cow can do that."

Rainer would allay any back-biting from Hollywood's bovines over her first Oscar with her performance as O-Lan in MGM producer Irving Thalberg's spectacular adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", the former Boy Wonder's final picture before his untimely death. The role won Rainer her second Best Actress Award. The success of The Good Earth (1937) was rooted in its realism, and its realism was enhanced by Rainer's acting opposite the legendary Paul Muni as her husband. When Thalberg cast Muni in the role of Wang Lung, he had to abandon any thought of casting the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as O-Lan as the Hays Office would not allow the hint of miscegenation, even between an actual Chinese woman and a Caucuasian actor in yellow-face drag. So, Thalberg gave Rainer the part, and she made O-Lan her own. She refused to wear a heavy makeup, and her elfin look helped her to assay a Chinese woman with results far superior to those of Myrna Loy in her Oriental vamp phase or Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed (1944). In the late 1990s, Rainer praised her director, Sidney Franklin, as "wonderful", and explained that she used an acting technique similar to "The Method" being pioneered by her husband's Group Theatre comrades back in New York. "I worked from inside out", she said. "It's not for me, putting on a face, or putting on makeup, or making masquerade. It has to come from inside out. I knew what I wanted to do and he let me do it." The win made Rainer the first two-time Oscar winner in an acting category and the first to win consecutive acting awards (Spencer Tracy, her distaff honoree for Captains Courageous (1937) would follow her as a consecutive acting Oscar winner the next year, and Walter Brennan, Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for Come and Get It (1936) the year Rainer won her first, would tie them both in 1937 with his win for Kentucky (1938) and trump them with his third win for The Westerner (1940), a record subsequently tied by Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, and surpassed by Katharine Hepburn.)

Rainer's career soon went into free-fall and collapsed, as she became the first notable victim of the "Oscar curse", the phenomenon that has seem many a performer's career take a nose-dive after winning an Academy Award. "For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me", Rainer said. A non-conformist, Rainer rejected Hollywood's values of Hollywood. In the late 1990s, she said, "I came from Europe where I was with a wonderful theater group, and I worked. The only thing on my mind was to do good work. I didn't know what an Academy Award was." MGM boss Mayer, the founding force behind the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, had to force her to attend the Awards banquet to receive her Oscar. She rebelled against the studio due to the movies that MGM forced her into after "The Good Earth".

In one case, director Dorothy Arzner had been assigned by MGM producer Joseph M. Mankiewicz (whose wife, Rose Stradner had been Rainer's understudy in the Vienna State Theater) in 1937 to direct Rainer in "The Girl from Trieste", an unproduced Ferenc Molnár play about a prostitute trying to go reform herself who discovers the hypocrisies of the respectable class which she aspires to. After Thalberg's death in 1936, Mayer's lighter aesthetic began to rule the roost at MGM. Mayer genuinely believed in the goodness of women and motherhood and put women on a pedestal; he once told screenwriter Frances Marion that he never wanted to see anything produced by MGM that would embarrass his wife and two daughters.

Without the more sophisticated Thalberg at the studio to run interference, Molnar's play was rewritten so that it was no longer about a prostitute, but a slightly bitter Cinderella story with a happy ending. Retitled by Mankiewicz as The Bride Wore Red (1937), Rainer withdrew and was replaced by Joan Crawford. In a 1976 interview in "The New York Times", Arzner claimed that Rainer "had been suspended for marrying a Communist" (Clifford Odets). This is unlikely as MGM, like all Hollywood studios, had known or suspected communists on its payroll, most of whose affiliations were known by MGM vice president E.J. Mannix. (Mannix, one of whose functions was responsibility for security at the studio, once said it would have been impossible to fire them all, as "the communists" were the studio's best writers.) The studio never took action against alleged communists until an industry-wide agreement to do so was sealed at the Waldorf Conference of 1947, which was held in reaction to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launching a Hollywood witch hunt.

It was more likely that Rainer, fussy over her projects and wanting to use her Academy Award prominence to ensure herself better roles, withdrew on her own due to her lack of enthusiasm for the reformulated product. In the late 1990s, Rainer recalled the satisfaction of being a European stage actress. "One day we were on a big tour", she told an interviewer in the late 1990s. "We did a play by Pirandello, and Reinhardt was in the theater. I shall never forget, it was the greatest compliment I ever got, better than any Academy Award. He came to me, looked at me and said - we were never called by first names - 'Rainer, how did you do this?' It was so wonderful. 'How did you create this?' I was so startled and happy. That was my Academy Award." Rainer still is dismissive of the Academy Awards. "I can't watch the Oscars," she said. "Everybody thanking their mother, their father, their grandparents, their nurse - it's a crazy, horrible." She blames the studio and Mayer for the rapid decline in her career. "What they did with me upset me very much", she said in a 1997 interview. "I was dreaming naturally like anyone to do something very good, but after I got the two Academy Awards the studio thought, it doesn't matter what she gets. They threw all kinds of stuff on me, and I thought, no, I didn't want to be an actress."

Mayer pulled his famous emotional routines when Rainer, whom he wanted to turn into a glamorous star, would demand meatier roles. "He would cry phony tears", she recalled. Mayer had opposed her being cast as O-Lan in "The Good Earth", but Thalberg, who had a connection with MGM capo di tutti capi Nicholas Schenck, the president of MGM corporate parent Loew's, Inc., appealed to Schenck, who overrode Mayer's veto. (Mayer, who was involved in a power struggle with Thalberg before the latter's death, had opposed his filming Pearl Buck's novel. Mayer's reasoning was that American audiences wouldn't patronize movies about American farmers, so what made anyone think they'd flock to see a film about Chinese farmers, especially one with such a big budget, estimated at $2.8 million. (Upon release, the film barely broke even.) Thalberg died during the filming of "The Good Earth" (the only film of his released by MGM whose title credits bore his name, in the form of a posthumous tribute).

Rainer felt lost without her protector. She recalled that Mayer "didn't know what to do with me, and that made me so unhappy. I was on the stage with great artists, and everything was so wonderful. I was in a repertory theater, and every night I played something else." Rainer asked to play Nora in a film of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" or portray Madame Curie, but instead, Mayer - now in complete control of the studio - had her cast in The Toy Wife (1938), a movie she actually wound up liking, as she was charmed by her co-star, the urbane, intellectually and politically enlightened Melvyn Douglas. She recalls Douglas, ultimately a double-Oscar winner like herself, as her favorite leading man. "He was intelligent, and he was interested also in other things than acting."

Her problems with the culture of Hollywood, or the lack thereof, were worsening. The lack of intellectual conversation or concern with ideas by the denizens of the movie colony she was forced to work with was depressing. Hollywood was an unsophisticated place where materialism, such as the stars' preoccupation with clothes, was paramount. As she tells it, "Soon after I was there in Hollywood, for some reason I was at a luncheon with Robert Taylor sitting next to me, and I asked him, 'Now, what are your ideas or what do you want to do', and his answer was that he wanted to have 10 good suits to wear, elegant suits of all kinds, that was his idea. I practically fell under the table."

MGM teamed her with fellow Oscar-winner Tracy in Big City (1937), a movie about conflict between rival taxi drivers. The memory of the movie disgusted her. "Supposedly it wasn't a bad film, but I thought it was a bad film!" She was also cast in The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937), reteaming her with "Ziegfeld" co-star Powell, a movie she didn't like, as she couldn't understand its story. A detective tale, the script thoroughly confused Rainer, who was expected to soldier on like a good employee. Instead, she resisted.

After appearing in The Great Waltz (1938) and Dramatic School (1938), her career was virtually over by 1938. She never made another film for MGM. "I just had to get away", she said about Hollywood. "I couldn't bear this total concentration and interviews on oneself, oneself, oneself. I wanted to learn, and to live, to go all over the world, to learn by seeing things and experiencing things, and Hollywood seemed very narrow." When World War II broke out in Europe, Rainer was joined by her family, as her German-born father was also an American citizen, allowing them all to escape Hitler and the Holocaust. Even before the outbreak of war, Rainer had been very worried about the state of affairs of the world, and she could not abide the escapist trifles that MGM wanted to cast her in. When she protested, Mayer told Rainer that if she defied him, he would blackball her in Hollywood.

Disturbed by Hollywood's apathy over fascism in Europe and Asia and by labor unrest and poverty in the U.S., she decided to walk out on her contract. She and Odets returned to New York. They were divorced in 1940. "Hollywood was a very strange place", she remembered. "To me, it was like a huge hotel with a huge door, one of those rotunda doors. On one side people went in, heads high, and very soon they came out on the other side, heads hanging." Her frustration with Hollywood was so complete, she abandoned movie acting in the early 1940s, after making the World War II drama Hostages (1943) for Paramount.

She made her Broadway debut in the play "A Kiss for Cinderella", which was staged by Lee Strasberg, which opened at the Music Box Theatre on March 10, 1942 and closed April 18th after 48 performances. Rainer then worked for the war effort during World War II, appearing at war bond rallies. She went on a tour of North Africa and Italy for the Army Special Service, socializing with soldiers to build their morale, and supplying them with books. The experience changed her life, allowing her to get over the shyness she'd had all her life. It also broadened her experience, forcing her to deal with the obvious fact that there were more important things than movie acting, which had proven unfulfilling to her.

Fortunately, Rainer found happiness in a long-lived marriage with the publisher Robert Knittel, a wealthy man whom she married in 1945. The couple had a daughter and made their home mostly in Switzerland and England as Rainer essentially left acting behind, although she did do some television in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Her retirement from the movies lasted for 53 years, until her brief comeback in The Gambler (1997), a movie based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's eponymous story. In the film, Rainer played the role of the matriarch of an aristocratic Russian family in the 1860s who is in hock due to the family members' obsession with gambling.

Toward the end of her life, Rainer lived in a luxurious flat in Eaton Square in London's Belgravia district, in a building where Vivien Leigh once lived. Blessed with a good memory, she claimed she could not remember the 1937 Academy Awards ceremony, when she won her first Oscar. She says the glamour of the event was out of sync with her life at the time, which was one of great sadness. "I married Clifford Odets. The marriage was for both of us a failure. He wanted me to be his little wife and a great actress at the same time. Somehow I could not live up to all of that."

She had intriguing offers during her long retirement. Federico Fellini had wanted Rainer for a role in La dolce vita (1960), but though she admired the director, she didn't like the script and turned it down. Rainer occasionally plied her craft as an actress on the stage. She made one more stab at Broadway, appearing in a 1950 production of Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea", which was staged by Sam Wanamaker and Terese Hayden and co-starred Steven Hill, one of the founding members of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. The play was a flop, running just 16 performances. "I was living in America and was on the stage there - sporadically. I always lived more than I worked. Which doesn't mean that I do not love my profession, and every moment I was in it gave me great satisfaction and happiness."

Rainer had no regrets over not becoming the star she might have been. She outlived all of the legendary stars of her era, which likely is the best revenge for the loss of her career after bidding adieu to a company town she could not abide.

Greta Schröder was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu. In the fictionalized 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of Nosferatu, but in fact she was little known.

The peak of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances.

Greta Schröder died on 8 June 1980 at the age of 87.

Naila Schuberth was born on 19 December 2011 in Dusseldorf, Germany. She is an actress, known for Liebes Kind (2023), Bird Box: Barcelona (2023) and Gefährliche Nähe (2021).

Ava Lazar was born in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. Ava is an actor and producer, known for Forever Young (1992), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Scarface (1983). Ava was previously married to John Tarnoff.

Ericson was born in Düsseldorf, the son of a German chemist and a Swedish actress and opera singer. Escaping from the Nazi regime, his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was three. At first living in Detroit, they eventually settled in New York where his dad (according to a 1955 newspaper article) found lucrative employment as president of a food extract company. After graduating from Newton High School, John enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, financially supporting his studies working at a Walgreen drug store.

Most sources incorrectly cite his acting debut as being Stalag 17 on Broadway, but Ericson himself stated (in a 1989 interview with Skip E. Lowe) that his career kick-started with the romantic wartime drama Teresa (1951), filmed in Italy by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Afterwards, he made the decision not to sign a studio contract for fear of being typecast as 'boy-next-door' types. On the strength of his performance in Teresa, producer/director José Ferrer offered Ericson not only what amounted to being the nominal lead in Stalag 17, but the opportunity to play an initially unsympathetic part as the slick, cynical gambler J. J. Sefton (the coveted motion picture role was eventually assigned to William Holden and won the star an Academy Award).

Between 1954 and 1955, Ericson was under contract at MGM and made for four films for the studio: Rhapsody (1954) (opposite Elizabeth Taylor), Green Fire (1954) (co-starring Grace Kelly who had been in his class at the Academy) and the seminal Spencer Tracy western Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) (as a nervy hotel clerk). During the next three decades, he worked as a free-lance actor, his wavy-haired good looks and athletic build not lost on the industry. He co-starred with Anne Francis in Honey West (1965), a short-lived series -- apparently modelled on The Avengers (1961) -- which featured a crime-solving, judo savvy lady detective (even wearing Diana Rigg-style jumpsuits) and her right hand man. The show only lasted for 30 episodes but has since gained a minor cult following.

Ericson's frequent TV guest appearances included Rawhide (1959), Burke's Law (1963), Bonanza (1959), The Invaders (1967) and The F.B.I. (1965). For the big screen, he starred in several James Bond pastiches and spaghetti westerns, produced in Italy and Spain. In the U.S., he had leads in thrillers (The Money Jungle (1967) ), westerns (notably, The Return of Jack Slade (1955) and the High Noon (1952)-lookalike Day of the Badman (1958) ) and science fiction B-graders (The Destructors (1968) and Dan Duryea's last film, The Bamboo Saucer (1968)). He also starred as the titular 1930s depression-era gangster in Pretty Boy Floyd (1960). On the stage, he played King Arthur to Kathryn Grayson's Guinevere in a 1967 production of the musical Camelot. A reviewer commented that what Ericson lacked in the vocal department he more than made up for by a 'masterful performance'. His dramatic theatrical credits included Richard III, Mr. Roberts and A Streetcar Named Desire.

In his spare time, John Ericson sidelined as a painter of landscapes and still life, a sculptor and a keen amateur photographer. Until his death on May 3 2020, he resided in New Mexico with his second wife Karen Huston whom he married in 1974. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Kjell Brutscheidt was born on 23 April 1996 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is an actor, known for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), Pauline (2024) and Sarah Kohr (2014).

Theodore Gottlieb was born on 11 November 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for The 'Burbs (1989), The Last Unicorn (1982) and Nocturna (1979). He died on 5 April 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.

Marie Bäumer was born on 7 May 1969 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She is an actress and writer, known for Im Angesicht des Verbrechens (2010), 3 Tage in Quiberon (2018) and Die Fälscher (2007).

Corinna Kirchhoff was born on 9 March 1958 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She is an actress, known for Paradise (2023), Casting (2017) and Riskante Patienten (2012).

Marco Girnth was born on 10 February 1970 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He is an actor and writer, known for SOKO Leipzig (2001), Holgi (1999) and Gegen den Wind (1995). He has been married to Katja Woywood since August 1998. They have one child.

A classical stage actor who enjoyed modest film stardom in the late 1940s and 1950s, the good-looking, somewhat unassuming British actor Norman Wooland also worked extensively on radio and television in a career that spanned six decades. Born to British parents in Dusseldorf, Germany on March 16, 1910, he was educated in England and started out in local theatre during his teen years. He went on to earn strong notice in repertory as a regular performer in Stratford-on-Avon Shakespearean productions. Appearing in "The Merchant of Venice" by the age of 16, he graced a number of pre-WWII plays including "When We Are Married" (1937), "Time and the Conways" (1938) and "What They Say" (1939). He joined the BBC in 1939 and spent six years as a radio commentator.

Although he made his film debut in 1937, Wooland did not attract much attention until the post-war era. The dark-haired, slightly drawn-faced actor made strong leading man impressions with Escape (1948), Look Before You Love (1948), All Over the Town (1949) and Madeleine (1950) while thriving onscreen in Shakespeare as well, notably supporting Laurence Olivier. Wooland portrayed Horatio opposite Olivier's Oscar-winning Hamlet (1948) and later played Catesby to Olivier's Richard III (1955). He also played Paris alongside Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall's Romeo and Juliet (1954), in a lesser known version of the Bard's tragedy. Wooland reunited with his movie Hamlet compatriots Eileen Herlie (Gertrude) and Basil Sydney (Claudius) in the notable historical drama The Angel with the Trumpet (1950) portraying Prince Rudolf. He also appeared with Ms. Herlie in a stage production of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray the following year.

The 1950s was Wooland's most steadfast decade for making films, which included the period costumers Quo Vadis (1951) and Ivanhoe (1952), in which he portrayed Richard the Lionhearted, and a lead role in the crime drama The Master Plan (1954). In the ensuing years he moved further down the credits list with The Flesh Is Weak (1957), The Bandit of Zhobe (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Barabbas (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), but was offered the lead (King Saul) in the Spanish/Italian co-production Saul e David (1964). He found more varied work on TV, even sitcoms, in the 60s and 70s, and continued his strong work on the stage with "An Enemy of the People" (1968), "A Man for All Seasons" (1972), "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1972), "Pride and Prejudice" (1975), "Equus" (1976) and "The Wild Duck" (1979). Wooland died in England in 1989 after having suffered multiple strokes.

Elena Uhlig was born on 31 July 1975 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She is an actress, known for Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit (2001), Das Beste aus meinem Leben (2006) and Keinohrhasen (2007). She has been married to Fritz Karl since 10 November 2023. They have four children.

Sonny Grosso was a New York City police officer when his experiences with his partner Eddie Egan during the early 60s became the basis of the film The French Connection (1971). Grosso had a bit part in the film while Egan had a more substantial role. Grosso later appeared in two more feature films, _Report to the Commissioner (1974)_ and Cruising (1980).

Born and raised in Dusseldorf, Germany by parents of Moroccan descent, Junes Zahdi moved to New York City in 2003 to undergo training in a two year master's class in a method acting conservatory. Upon completing his training, Junes was immediately cast as the lead in the film "The Man Who Killed Castro", which won critical acclaim at numerous film festivals internationally in 2009. After playing the lead role in "Last Chance", a film screened on FOX as part of the Steven Spielberg production "On the Lot", Junes continued to garner roles in films, network series and on off-Broadway stages before moving to Los Angeles in 2008.

After moving to Los Angeles, Junes immediately gained a supporting role on ABC Family's "Lincoln Heights," alongside Vanessa Williams. Junes then began filming, "To Rest in Peace", which became a Cannes favorite and has won awards at various film festivals. While playing Aiden in "Ma Cite mon Histoire", sponsored by Vanity Fair and Banana Republic, Junes grabbed the attention of Emmy award nominated DP Cira Felina Bolla, who then cast him as the lead of the film "Feroz", where his role as a sociopath received critical acclaim.

Junes just finished filming "Noon"-a Kasra Farahani (Art Director of Avatar, Thor, and Benjamin Button) directed sci-fi drama in which he plays Peter, one of the last religious people in a post-apocalyptic world where religion is forbidden.

Junes' interests and talents also extend into the worlds of dance and music. As a professional salsa dancer, Junes performed with Jennifer Lopez for "Fashion Rocks" at Radio City Music Hall and guest starred as the international salsa master alongside Tim Gunn on his Bravo network show "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style". Sponsored by Fashion House Yves Saint Laurent, "Larmoyant," a film written and produced by Junes Zahdi, showcases his singing and dancing talents.

His most current musical endeavors including, "Serenata", "Elephant" and "Home", represent the culmination of his musical styling. Junes was recently cast in the upcoming Feature "Dana", a drama about the trials of three generations of women filmed in Bahrain, Dubai and Lebanon. Junes will portray Adel, the manipulative two-faced fiancé of the youngest generation female.

See Junes as the "hilarious fashion-weirdo" Ramon on FOX's hit series The Mindy Project.

Ayesha Kapur was born on 13 September 1994 in Dusseldorf, Germany. She is an actress, known for Black (2005), Sikandar (2009) and Sanaa (2006).

Ankie Beilke was born on 25 September 1980 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She is an actress and producer, known for Po po chiu kai yan (2010), Bo chi tung wah (2008) and Jue se wu qi (2012).

Helmut Käutner was born on 25 March 1908 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1956), Die letzte Brücke (1954) and Der Rest ist Schweigen (1959). He was married to Erica Balqué. He died on 20 April 1980 in Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy.

Alwin H. Küchler was born in 1965 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is a cinematographer, known for Sunshine (2007), Divergent (2014) and The Mauritanian (2021). He has been married to Ngozi Onwurah since 28 November 1998.

Tetsuya Kakihara was born on 24 December 1982 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is an actor, known for Tengen toppa gurren lagann (2007), Gekijouban Fairy Tail: Houou no miko (2012) and Gekijô ban Kara no kyôkai: Dai go shô - Mujun rasen (2008).

After his school education, Gustaf Gründgens volunteered for the Western Front in 1916. The following year he joined the Saarlouis front theater group, which he led two years later. After the war, he trained from 1919 to 1920 at the Düsseldorf Theater School of Stage Arts. He took on his first roles at the municipal open-air theater and a year later an engagement at the municipal theaters in Halberstadt. This was followed by acting work in Kiel and Berlin. From 1923 Gustaf Gründgens played at the Kammerspiele in Hamburg. Within five years he took on 71 roles and directed 32 productions.

During this time he acquired a wide repertoire from classical drama to modern plays. In 1924 he made his debut as a director of plays such as "Anja and Esther" (1924) by Klaus Mann. In it he played the main role alongside Erika and Klaus Mann as well as Pamela Wiedekind. Gründgens married Erika Mann in 1926, but the marriage ended in divorce almost three years later. In 1927, Gründgens played at the Kammerspiele of the German Theater in Berlin. Productions and engagements at various stages in Berlin followed until 1933. In 1929 he directed his first opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". He appeared frequently in cabarets with Grethe Weiser and Ernst Busch.

Gründgen also began his film work during this time. Gründgens often played seducers, shady characters, bon vivants, con artists and blackmailers, who were later portrayed well in films. In 1932, Gründgens was engaged at the Prussian Theater. There he played his first role as Mephistopheles in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust". Two years later he took over the position of director at the State Theater and became a state actor. He was appointed State Councilor in 1936 and married the actress Marianne Hoppe. In 1937 Gustaf Gründgens became general director of the Prussian State Theater.

He also appeared in front of the film camera several times for titles such as "The Girl Johanna" (1935), "Dance on the Volcano" (1938) and in the propaganda film "Ohm Krüger" (1941). He also directed films such as the aviation comedy "Capriolen" and "The Step from the Way" (1938) with Marianne Hoppe. A propagandistic tendency includes Gründgen's film "Two Worlds" (1939), which tells of two boys' harvest work. In 1938 and 1941, Gründgens staged opera works in Berlin and Vienna. He achieved a personal success in 1941 with the new production of Goethe's tragedy "Faust I", in which he also played Mephistopheles. The following year he was a member of the troop support team in Norway and in 1943 he took part in the service in the replacement department as a private.

After the end of the war, Gründgens spent nine months in a Soviet internment camp. In the denazification process, he was exonerated by, among others, Ernst Busch. In 1946 he played at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. His first role was that of Christian Maske in "The Snob" by Carl Sternheim. From 1947 to 1955, Gründgens headed the Düsseldorf Municipal Theater as general manager. He was then general director of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. His production of "Faust I," which he performed in Moscow and New York, became world-famous. The play was made into a film in 1960. After the 1962/63 season he resigned from the position of director.

Gustaf Gründgens died of a stomach hemorrhage in Manila on October 7, 1963, during a trip around the world.

Mike Hoffmann was born in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He is an actor, known for Ein Weg (2017), Das Privileg (2022) and My Mother Is a Cosmonaut.

Michael Ohoven was born on 30 August 1974 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is a producer and director, known for Capote (2005), Push (2009) and The Cave (2005). He has been married to Joyce Giraud since 8 March 2009. They have two children.