Curd Jürgens

Date of Birth: 13 December 1915

Birth Name: Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens

Nickname: The Norman hulk (by Brigitte Bardot)

Height: 6′ 4″ (1.93 m)

Mini Biography:

Curd Jürgens (commonly billed as “Curt Jurgens” in anglophone countries) was one of the most successful European film actors of the 20th Century. He was born Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens on December 13, 1915, in Solln, Bavaria, in Hohenzollern Imperial Germany, a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of Franco-German parentage, Jürgens — who was born during the closing days of the second year of the First World War — would abandon the country of his birth after the end of World War II: Jürgens became an Austrian citizen in 1945 and lived part-time in France.Jürgens entered the journalism profession after receiving his education, and married Louise Basler, an actress. Basler, the first of his five wives, encouraged him to switch careers and become an actor. He learned his new profession on the Vienna stage, which retained his loyalty even after he became an global film star. Jürgens was sent to a concentration camp for “political unreliables” in 1944 due to his anti-Nazi opinions. It was this experience in Nazi Germany that led him to become an Austrian citizen after the war.His appearance in Des Teufels General (1955) (“The Devil’s General” (1955)) established him as a star of German cinema, and his role as Brigitte Bardot’s older lover in Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu… créa la femme (1956) (And God Created Woman (1956)) made him an international star. Always interested in multilingual European actors with good looks and talent, Hollywood beckoned the 6′ 4″ Jürgens, casting him in The Enemy Below (1957) as a WWII German U-boat commander in a duel with American destroyer commander Robert Mitchum. He constantly was in demand to play Germany military officers (e.g., The Longest Day (1962), the most expensive black-and-white film ever made) — indeed, his last role was as The General in the miniseries _”Smiley’s People” (1982)(TV)_ — and Germanic villains (e.g., Cornelius, the cowardly and treacherous trading company representative, in Lord Jim (1965)) for the rest of his life. One of his most famous roles in the English-language cinema was as the James Bond villain Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the best entry in Roger Moore’s Bond series. It was Moore’s favorite Bond film.Jürgens considered himself primarily a stage actor and often performed on the Vienna stage. Though the world knew him as a cinema actor, he also directed several films and wrote several screenplays and an autobiography, “Sixty and Not Yet Wise” (1975). His death from a heart attack in 1982 in Vienna was front-page news across Austria and Germany.

Spouse:

Margie Schmitz (21 March 1978 – 18 June 1982) (his death)
Simone Bicheron (14 September 1958 – 1977) (divorced)
Eva Bartok (13 August 1955 – 1957) (divorced) 1 child
Judith Holzmeister (16 October 1947 – 1955) (divorced)
Lulu Basler (15 June 1937 – 8 October 1947) (divorced)

Trivia:

Some three decades late, his former wife, the Hungarian- born actress Eva Bartok, claimed that his and her daughter, Deana (b. 1957), was actually fathered by Frank Sinatra during a brief affair that Sinatra and Bartok had had in 1956.
Was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II.
In 1933, he had a severe car accident. The medics had to cut his spermatic cords, which resulted in a life-long infertility. His only child was, as later revealed by her mother, Eva Bartok, not his own.
His autobiographical novel “… und kein bißchen weise” (Sixty and Not Yet Wise) was published in 1976.
Born to a German father, a salesman from Hamburg, and a French mother, he had two older twin sisters.
Became naturalized citizen of Austria in 1945.
Owned several residences: in Saint Paul de Vence (France), Gstaad (Switzerland) and in the Bahamas.
Ranked #2 in a list by German tabloid “Bild” searching the men with the most sex-appeal ever (2005).
Ensemble member at the famous Vienna Burgtheater from 1940 to 1953 and from 1965 to 1968.
Made his last stage appearance as Pasha Selim in “The Abduction form Seraglio” during the Vienna State Opera’s tour in Japan (1980).
Was interred in the Central Cemetery, Vienna.