Actors who fought during wartime

[Annelie]

askropp,

I tried to find his biography online and could find no reference to anything WWII.
Is there an English site that would go into this?

thanks
Annelie

[askropp]

If google doesn't produce one, I don't know. There are a lot of German articles and interviews. Schönherr starred alongside Hardy Krüger in "Junge Adler" and joined the army just after the shooting. He went AWOL during the last days of the war and returned home. Later, after he had joined the 68er movement and took a leading part in the 1980s protests against Reagan (whom he called a "criminal" and an "Arschloch") and nuclear armament, he classified this as a "desertion".

[Annelie]

Thanks askropp.

[Gamle Lode]

Klaus Kinski, of course. He served in the Luftwaffe air defense, but he was relieved as being mentally too unstable.

Not really an actor but the man who produced most Beatles albums during 1960's, Sir George Martin, served in a Fairey Swordfish crew in RAF.

[Helmut0815]

Klaus Kinski, of course. He served in the Luftwaffe air defense, but he was relieved as being mentally too unstable.

He served as a Luftwaffe paratrooper and got wounded 1944 in the Netherlands were he was captured by the British. In the POW camp he played his first theatre roles and proved his madness:

By May 1945, at the end of the war in Europe, the German POWs were anxious to return home. Kinski had heard that sick prisoners were to be returned first, and tried to qualify by standing outside naked at night, drinking urine, and eating cigarettes. He remained healthy but finally was returned to Germany in 1946, after spending a year and four months in captivity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Kins ... rld_War_II

regards


Helmut

[Annelie]

Helmut0815

After reading his bio in Wikipedia he didn't seem like a very nice person.
Not only for the way he tried to get out of serving but his personal life
and his interaction with his children.

[Gamle Lode]

Ach, thank you for correcting me Helmut0825!

Annelie, this Klaus Kinski is my favorite German actor, but yes he was a bit off his chump. I even still refuse to read his autobiography for various reasons, but anyway Kinski made some outstanding work on screen.

[KHeitmann]

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[Helmut0815]

Lex Barker (May 8, 1919 – May 11, 1973)

In February 1941 Barker left his fledgling acting career and enlisted in the US Army. He fought in north Africa and Sicily were he was severly wounded in the head. He rose to the rank of major during the war. After the war he became best known for playing Tarzan of the Apes and leading characters like "Old Shatterhand" from Karl May's novels.

regards

Helmut

[Loïc]

You guys omitted an important actor who fought in a war. French actor Alain Delon fought as a paratrooper in Vietnam, where he was dishonorably discharged from the army. I remember seeing a photo in which he was took with his conmrades in Vietnam.

indeed Alain Delon was paratrooper...but in Algeria and only in a famous movie with Anthony Quinn

the data is true for Viêt Nam : in Saïgon during the Indochina War in 1953 but in the Navy as sailor fusilier-marin, volunteer at 17 years old

[Maurice H]

I could have sworn that on a World At War episode this same guy named Kiwi was interviewed...

[Nickdfresh]

Michael Caine - Korea IIRC.

...

Yep. The guy in my avatar not only was in Korea, but fought in the poor bloody infantry and was nearly killed or captured when his unit was cut off, IIRC.

He once remarked that "Stuttering John", the interviewer that terrorized celebrities in the 1990's for The Howard Stern Show with bizarre questions regarding their sex lives and flatulence was said to have given him a PTSD flashback to Korea. He said he could almost smell the scent of unwashed Chinese PLA soldiers charging en masse as Stuttering John was asking him questions...

He was in The Royal Fusiliers.

[James A Pratt III]

Randolf Scott was in WWI

John Wayne as I understand it injured one of shoulders during a surfing accident as a young man which didn't help him in joining the military. Wayne also was under contract with republic pictures during this time and back then if you signed a contract like this the studio owned you.

Humpery Bogart got the scar on his upper lip do to a post WWI brawl not a battle wound.

[Annelie]

Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

served in the United States Army for five years during World War II, where he became friends with Garson Kanin. He was awarded the Purple Heart for a leg wound received during the battle of Hürtgen Forest.

He was the son of Jewish Russian immigrant Efrem Zimbalist and Romanian Soprano Alma Gluck....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1265akmPQeg

[Helmut0815]

Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017)

Known as a supporting actor in movies like "Kelly's Heroes", "Alien" and "Escape from New York" he became famous with the lead role in "Paris, Texas" (1984).
In WWII he served in the US Navy as a cook aboard the USS LST-970 during the Battle of Okinawa.

regards


Helmut