Paul Klinger

Paul Klinger (14 June 1907, Essen – 14 November 1971, Munich), whose real name was Paul Karl Heinrich Klinksik, was a German stage and film actor who also worked in radio drama and soundtrack dubbing.

His father, a civil engineer, was Karl Heinrich Klinksik; his mother was Gertrud Emma Mathilde (née) Uhlendahl. He was first married from 1936 to 1945 to the actress Hildegard Wolf with whom he had one child. There were two more children from his second marriage in 1950 to Karin Anderson, another actress. Paul Klinger and Karin Andersen, twenty years his junior, met during the filming of a crime thriller in 1950 when she was working on the set as a stills photographer. They would later appear together in two of the Immenhof films, Hochzeit auf Immenhof, 1956 and Ferien auf Immenhof, 1957.

Klinger's secondary education was at the Helmholtz-Realgymnasium, which he attended to Abitur level taking part in amateur dramatic productions with his friend, Helmut Käutner. However, his father was opposed to any idea of a career in the theatre and sent him to the Technische Hochschule München (Technical University Munich), where he once again met up with his old school friend Helmut Käutner. The latter persuaded him to change from architecture to a theatrical course. He completed six semesters, he and his friend working as extras at the Otto-Falckenberg Schauspielhaus. The death of his father meant that he could no longer afford to study and he accordingly decided to become a professional actor.

One of his first engagements was at the Bayerische Landesbühne (a travelling theatre) – and from 1929 at theatres in Koblenz, Oldenburg, Düsseldorf and Breslau – where his powerful and distinctive voice landed him major parts for which he was really too young. Things were to change in 1933 when the director took him to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where he was cast in the roles of young heroes, as was the case with a production of in which he appeared with Käthe Dorsch. He would remain in theatre in Berlin until 1948, appearing not only at the Deutsches Theater but also at the Komische Oper, the , the , the and in comedy.

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