Karlheinz Böhm
| Karlheinz Böhm | |
|---|---|
Karlheinz Böhm in Peeping Tom 1960
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| Born |
16 March 1928 Darmstadt, Germany |
| Died | 29 May 2014 (aged 86) Grödig, Austria |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1948–2014 |
| Spouse(s) | Elisabeth Zonewa (1954–1957) 1 Child Gudula Blau (1958–1962) 3 Children Barbara Lass (1963–1980) 1 Child Almaz Böhm (1991–2014 his death) 2 Children |
Karlheinz Böhm (16 March 1928 – 29 May 2014), sometimes referred to as Carl Boehm or Karl Boehm, was a German actor and philanthropist. He took part in 45 films and became well known in Austria and Germany for his role as Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the Sissi trilogy and internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. He was the founder of the trust Menschen für Menschen (“Humans for Humans”), which helps people in need in Ethiopia. He also received honorary Ethiopian citizenship in 2003.
He had two citizenships because his father was the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm, while his mother was the German-born soprano Thea Linhard. He was an only child, and spent his youth in Darmstadt, Hamburg and Dresden. In Hamburg he attended elementary school and the Kepler-Gymnasium (a grammar school). Faked papers (claiming he had a lung disease) enabled him to emigrate to Switzerland in 1939, where he attended the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, a boarding school. In 1946, he moved to Graz with his parents, where he graduated from high school the same year. He originally intended to become a pianist but received poor feedback when he auditioned. His father urged him to study English and German language and literary studies, followed by studies of history of arts for one semester in Rome after which he quit and returned to Vienna to take acting lessons with Prof. Helmuth Krauss.
From 1948 to 1976 he acted in about 45 films and also in theatre. With Romy Schneider, he starred in Sissi (1955), the first of a film trilogy, as the Emperor Franz Joseph, with Schneider as his wife, Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The role for a time limited him to one specific genre as an actor, but Böhm's best known English language film was a dramatic change of image. In Peeping Tom (1960) he played the psychopath Mark Lewis. The director Michael Powell cast him in the role because he felt Böhm might understand the character's experience of an overbearing father. The film's initial rejection hurt both the actor and Powell, for Powell professionally as well as emotionally, but it is now regarded as a classic.
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