Udo Kier, the German actor known for his eclectic body of work that included many horror movies and collaborations with filmmakers Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier and Wim Wenders, has died. He was 81.
Kier died Sunday at Eisenhower Health hospital in Rancho Mirage, California, his friend of 60 years, photographer Michael Childers, announced.
The magnetic Kier amassed more than 280 film and TV roles during his career, according to IMDb, as he moved among art house films, features directed by European auteurs and Hollywood blockbusters over seven decades.
He partnered with filmmaker and countryman Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a onetime lover, for the films The Third Generation (1979), Lili Marllen (1981) and Lola (1981) and for the acclaimed 14-part 1980 miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz.
More recently, he appeared in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing (2017), starred as a retired hairdresser in Todd Stephens’ Swan Song (2021) and showed up as a Jewish tailor in Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Oscar hopeful The Secret Agent (2025).
For Van Sant, who brought him to America and got him into SAG, Kier portrayed the benefactor Hans alongside Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho (1991), then reunited with the American director for Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) and Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018).
Kier and the Danish von Trier worked together on films including Europa (1991), Breaking the Waves (1996), the Palme d’Or winner Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005) and Melancholia (2011) and on the horror miniseries The Kingdom.
And for the German-born Wenders, he appeared in A Trick of the Light (1995) and The End of Violence (1997).
Udo Kierspe was born in Cologne on Oct. 14, 1944. After he and his mother, a seamstress, survived when the hospital they were in was bombed, he grew up in poverty without his father. He moved to London at age 18 and learned English, then made his acting debut in the 1966 short film Road to Saint Tropez.
After co-starring with Herbert Lom in the horror film Mark of the Devil (1970) — he had started out as an on-set assistant on that — Kier met Paul Morrissey on a plane, and the Andy Warhol regular cast him as Baron Frankenstein in Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and as a virgins-lusting Count Dracula in Blood for Dracula (1974).
“I starved myself and only ate leaves and drank water,” Kier once said of his crash diet for the latter role. “At the beginning [of the shoot], I sat in a wheelchair because I didn’t have any power.”
He followed with turns in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), Miklos Jancsó’s Hungarian Rhapsody (1979) and Fassbinder’s trilogy closer Lola.
Kier’s big-screen résumé included For Love or Money (1993); Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994); Johnny Mnemonic (1995); Barb Wire (1996); The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996) and its 1999 sequel; Armageddon (1998); Blade (1998); End of Days (1999); Lords of Salem (2012); and The Forbidden Room (2015).
He was photographed for Madonna’s 1992 coffee table book, Sex, and then showed up in her music video for “Deeper and Deeper.” He also was in music videos for Eve and Gwen Stefani (“Let Me Blow Ya Mind”) and Korn (“Make Me Bad”).
He was perhaps best known for his horror films.
“If you play small or guest parts in movies, it is better to be evil and scare people than be the guy who works in the post office and goes home to his wife and children,” he said in a 2021 interview. “Audiences will remember you more.”
