Klaus kinski

Nikolaus Nakszynski (Sopot, Free City of Danzig, now Poland, October 18, 1926 - Lagunitas, California, November 23, 1991), also known as Klaus Kinski, was a German actor, nationalized American, closely linked to the director Werner Herzog.

He was the father of actress Nastassja Kinski.

Biographical information

Klaus Günther Karl Nakszynski was born to a German marriage in Sopot, Free City of Danzig (now Poland) in 1926. His father, Bruno Nakszynski, ethnically Polish, was a failed opera singer who became a pharmacist, his mother, Susanne (née, Lutze) was a nurse and the daughter of a local pastor. Klaus had three older brothers: Inge, Arne and Hans-Joachim.

Due to the Great Depression, the family was unable to earn a living in Danzig and moved to Berlin in 1931, where they also continued to struggle with financial difficulties. They settled in a flat in the Schöneberg district and took German citizenship.

Kinski was conscripted into the German army in 1943, during World War II, and mobilized to the Netherlands in 1944. Forced to fight, he was wounded in the arm and captured by British soldiers in 1944, remaining in a camp prisoners of war in Colchester, England, until 1946, where he learned English and participated in impromptu theater intended to maintain prisoners' morale.

Artistic career

After the war, he began acting in plays with a traveling troupe, where he adopted the stage name Klaus Kinski. He went through several companies in a few years because his unconventional behavior and volatile character regularly got him into trouble. Since 1956 he began to gain fame with his monologues by William Shakespeare and the patriarch and hero of the cursed poets, François Villon, which he interpreted with impeccable German diction and with a declamatory passion that was not traditional to the dramatic styles of previous generations. He worked with great theater directors who instilled in him principles of the abstract and experimental theater of cruelty, prohibited during Nazism, and he also learned concepts of representation theory that he would use throughout his career. He toured Austria, Germany and Switzerland with his shows, but living without a regular job in Vienna, Kinski turned to the film industry, which he considered much more profitable.

Possessing a temperamental and irascible character, his performances were truly theatrical and his characters psychotic. He was also a sexual addict, with irrepressible coprolalia, and used to leave a trail of personal enemies in his wake due to his rudeness and aggressiveness. A rare exception was Claudia Cardinale, with whom he worked at Fitzcarraldo , as he remembers him as courteous and attentive.

Place of birth of Klaus Kinski in Sopot, Free City of Danzig, annexed to Poland since 1945.

He made his film debut in 1948, in a small role in the film Morituri. Throughout his career he would act in a large number of films, almost all of them of a very low category, as he himself recognized by not caring about the differences in quality or professionalism to be demanding.^{[citation required]} He even came to think contemptuously and have serious doubts about the excellence of art and artistic media in which he engaged and suspected of being personally exploited like his contemporary Marlon Brando, of whom he came to say: «I am a prostitute I do this crap for the money, nothing more.”^{[citation needed]}

Nevertheless, some of them were important films within their respective genres, such as Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965) and Per qualche dollaro in più (Sergio Leone, 1965), in a small but impressive role, which later earned him a contract for several more spaghetti westerns.

He achieved some renown with his roles as psychopaths and insane, and became somewhat stereotyped for such roles. His particular face also helped in this case.

Her participation in Paroxysmus (original title, Venus in Furs), in 1969, was the meeting point with one of the directors with whom she connected the most (perhaps more than with Werner Herzog), Jesús Franco. With the Madrid director he became a great friendship, perhaps due to the peculiarity of their respective characters. The Spanish director is one of the few who remembered Kinski with pleasure, stating that he preferred him, with his madness and temperament, over Christopher Lee, for example, "too much of an English gentleman".^{[ citation required]} Other films Kinski made with Franco were Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969), Count Dracula (1970) and Jack the Ripper (1976).

In the early 1970s he carried out a series of controversial theatrical presentations known as Jesus Christus Erlöser or simply Jesus Tour, in which he openly and hostilely confronted to the public, he proclaimed himself the Messiah and incited the visceral reaction of the audience with all sorts of provocations. The complete scripts of her presentations, as well as their audio recording, have been preserved. The most famous moment of this presentation can be found in the biographical documentary My Intimate Enemy (Mein Liebster Feind, 1999), by Werner Herzog.

I work with Herzog

Kinski's international reputation was forged through his collaborations with director Werner Herzog — whom, curiously, he had met when Herzog was still a child, having shared a boarding house in Munich. He starred in five of his feature films: Nosferatu, vampire of the night, a classic horror film that hosts one of his best performances, in a role made for him, Aguirre, the wrath of God (or Aguirre, the wrath of God ), Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .

Between Herzog and Kinski there was always a difficult professional relationship that could be described as love-hate and that was reflected in the documentary My Intimate Enemy, in which Herzog affirms that they both even planned to kill each other mutually. In fact, Kinski spoke of Herzog in the following way:

He is a miserable individual, he strikes me as a cojonera fly, resentful, envious, stinking ambition and greed, evil, sadistic, traitorous, blackmailer, coward and a head-to-foot phony. Their supposed “story” consists only of torture of helpless creatures and, if necessary, kill them with fatigue or murder them. Nobody cares about anything, except for his hard career as a filmmaker. Driven by a pathological craving to cause sensation, he himself causes the most absurd difficulties and dangers and puts into play the security and even the life of others, only after that he, Herzog, has endowed seemingly insurmountable forces. For his films he puts hands of undeveloped people mentally and dilettantly, those who can handle their craving (and, supposedly, hypnotize!), and those who pay a hunger wage, and that if he pays them. The rest are crippled and abortions of all kinds, in order to seem interesting. You have no idea how a movie is made. You don't even try to instruct me anymore. He's long since given up asking me if I'm willing to carry out his boring chores, since I'm forbidden to speak to him.

Klaus Kinski

From the beginning, tensions in the Herzog-Kinski tandem had reached dangerous peaks and they repeatedly threatened to kill each other. On the other hand, Kinski's diva attitude in the filming made him numerous enemies, to the point that, according to Herzog, on one occasion an Indian chief offered to kill Kinski. The actor expressed his resentment and resentment towards Herzog in his autobiography, in which he says, referring to Herzog: «Dirty bastard, who knows nothing about cinema, I shot everything, he has no culture, he is illiterate »; and continues: "I would break his face, I would cut off his head, I will kill him with my BB gun."^{[citation needed]} He also states that he is a "shit and chicken », that he is afraid of the indigenous people and that he is cruel and vile, who mistreats the animals and the people of his troupe. Anyway, to complete the picture, it must be said that Werner Herzog affirms that these insults were a publicity stunt planned by both of them.

Kinski's most turbulent collaboration with Herzog was Cobra Verde, in which he portrayed slave trader Francisco Manoel da Silva (a) Cobra Verde. During filming, Kinski physically attacked Herzog and left filming without finishing the film. Said episode ended up breaking the relationship between Kinski and Herzog.

After Herzog

After the definitive break between the two artists, Kinski continued playing roles in films of a wide variety of kinds. He even participated in The Fruits of Passion , an X movie with explicit sex, both by the actors (Isabelle Illiers) and by Klaus Kinski himself.

Other films from this period include Androide, The Girl with the Drum, Venom, Psychopath and Crawlspace. He returned to the role of Nosferatu in Nosferatu in Venezia.

In 1985, directed by Spanish director Fernando Colomo, he filmed El caballero del dragón. According to the director, shooting and having to live with Kinski was hell for everyone. He had an explosive character, an inordinate ego and an insufferable divisiveness. He was unfriendly, troublesome, capricious and irascible with almost the entire team: "he only respected the gypsies (in charge of caring for the animals) and Miguel Bosé."

His last film, shot in 1989, marked his debut as a director, screenwriter and even editor, of course with him as the lead. The title was Kinski: Paganini, or just Paganini, an ambitious project that initially intended to be a 16-hour miniseries for Italian television, about the life of the composer and musician of the same name.

According to Herzog, Kinski asked him to direct this film, but their relationship was so deteriorating that Herzog declined the project and the impulsive Kinski then took over. Once the managers and producers of the project had access to the initial material that Kinski was filming, they decided to abort the shooting, agreeing to release it as a feature film and no longer as a television series. The film ended up being a chaotic and colorful reflection of the actor's singular personality and received negative reviews that, together with the financial failure of the film, ended up defenestrating the project.

Paradoxically, the manifest interest that great directors had in working with Kinski, who rejected authors such as Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti or Steven Spielberg, is well known.^{[citation required]}

Selected filmography

• Decision Before Dawn (1951, directed by Anatole Litvak)
• Time to love, time to die (1958, led by Douglas Sirk)
• Sword by mandate (1962, led by George Seaton)
• Dr. Zhivago (1965, led by David Lean)
• Per qualche dollaro in più (1966, led by Sergio Leone)
• I am the revolution (1967, led by Damiano Damiani)
• Diamonds to gogo (1968, directed by Giuliano Montaldo)
• The Great Silence (1968, led by Sergio Corbucci)
• Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969, led by Jesus Franco)
• I am your executioner (1969, led by Anthony Ascott)
• 5 for hell (1969, directed by Gianfranco Parolini)
• Count Dracula (1970, led by Jesus Franco)
• And God said to Cain (1970, directed by Antonio Margheriti)
• Revenge is a dish served cold (1971, led by Pasquale Squitieri)
• Aguirre, the wrath of God or Aguirre, the wrath of God (1972, led by Werner Herzog)
• The important thing is to love (1975, led by Andrej Zulawski)
• Jack the Ripper (1976, led by Jesus Franco)
• Nuit d'or (1976, led by Serge Moati)
• Woyzeck (1979, led by Werner Herzog)
• Nosferatu, ghost of the night (1979, led by Werner Herzog)
• Buddy Buddy (1981, led by Billy Wilder)
• Fitzcarraldo (1982, led by Werner Herzog)
• The Knight of the Dragon (1985, led by Fernando Colomo)
• Green Cobra (1987, led by Werner Herzog)
• Kinski: Paganini (1989, led by Klaus Kinski)
• My intimate enemy (1999, posthumous film by Kinski, directed by Werner Herzog)

Personal life

Kinski was married three times. His first wife was the singer Gislinde Kühlbeck, in 1952. The couple had a daughter named Pola Kinski. They divorced in 1955. Five years later he married actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. Their daughter Nastassja Kinski was born in January 1961. They divorced in 1971. He married his third and last wife, model Minhoi Geneviève Loanic in 1971. Their son Nikolai Kinski was born in 1976. They divorced in 1979. According to his own autobiography, had at least five children, of which only three he recognized as such: Pola, Nastassja (with whom he had a conflictive relationship that ended up breaking the father-daughter bond) and Nikolai Nanhoï. They were all actors.

Personality

Kinski was temperamental and quick-tempered with a predilection for swearing and cursing and often left a trail of personal enemies in his wake due to his rude and aggressive behavior. He was also an erotomaniac and a sex addict. His sexual exploits were reflected in his autobiography, titled I need love .

Mental Health

In 1950 Kinski stayed in a psychiatric hospital for three days because he harassed a 50-year-old female doctor and eventually tried to strangle her. Medical records for the period listed a preliminary diagnosis of schizophrenia, but the conclusion was psychopathy (antisocial personality disorder). During this time, Kinski became unable to get film roles and, according to one source, in 1955 attempted suicide twice. times.

Accusation of sexual abuse

In an interview published in January 2013 in the German Sunday weekly Bild am Sonntag, as well as in a book of his published in 2013 entitled, in German, Kindermund ("Children's Mouths"), Pola Kinski claimed that her father had sexually abused her for fourteen years from the age of 5 to 19.

Death

Plaque commemorative of the place of birth of Kinski in Sopot

Klaus Kinski, who had retired from film and public life in 1989, died on November 21, 1991, the victim of a heart attack, in Lagunitas, a jungle plot in California. His body was cremated, and the ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Of his three children, only Nikolai attended the funeral. ^{[citation needed ]}

Legacy

Werner Herzog, in his 1999 documentary about Kinski titled "My Best Friend," claimed that Kinski had fabricated much of his autobiography and discussed difficulties in their working relationship. Director David Schmoeller released a 1999 short film titled Please Kill Mr. Kinski , which examined stories of Kinski's erratic and disturbing behavior on the set of his 1986 film Crawlspace. The film features behind-the-scenes footage of Kinski's various confrontations with the director and crew members, along with Schmoeller's account of the events.

In 2006, Christian David published the first full-length biography of Kinski, based on recently discovered archival material, personal letters, and interviews with the actor's friends and colleagues. Peter Geyer published a paperback book of essays on Kinski's life and work.^{[citation needed]}