Life and work

Krüger was born in Wedding, Berlin in 1928. From 1941, he went to an Adolf Hitler School at the Ordensburg Sonthofen. At age 15, Hardy made his film début in a German picture, The Young Eagles, but his acting career was interrupted when he was conscripted into the German Wehrmacht in 1944 at age 16. In March 1945, Krüger was conscripted into the 38th SS Division Nibelungen, where he was drawn into heavy fighting before being captured by American forces.

Because of his archetypal Germanic look; blond hair and blue eyes, Hardy Krüger often performed in roles portraying German soldiers.

He first came to the attention of English language audiences in the 1957 British war film The One That Got Away, the story of Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war to successfully escape from Allied custody and return to Germany.

In 1960, Krüger bought Ngorongoro farm in the then Tanganyika Territory, which he owned for 13 years. Ngorongoro served as the setting for the 1962 film Hatari!, a Howard Hawks film, in which Krüger appeared with John Wayne.

Fluent in German, English and French, he has worked in numerous European and American films such as the Oscar-winning Les dimanches de ville d'Avray (1962), the original 1965 version of The Flight of the Phoenix and the German version of The Moon is Blue. Other films include The Wild Geese (1978) with Richard Burton, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon with Ryan O'Neal, the comedy-drama The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) where he played a German officer during the Second World War trying to find hidden wine in a small Italian town, and Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (sharing a scene with Laurence Olivier).

His daughter Christiane Krüger and his son, Hardy Krüger, Jr. are also actors.

Selected filmography

• Junge Adler (de) (Young Eagles) (1944)
• You Have to be Beautiful (1951)
• My Name is Niki (1952)
• Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach (1953)
• As Long as You're Near Me (1953)
• Muß man sich gleich scheiden lassen? (1953)
• The Last Summer (1954)
• Alibi (de) (1955)
• Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956)
• Die Christel von der Post (1956)
• Banktresor 713 (de) (1957)
• Der Fuchs von Paris (de) (1957)
• The One That Got Away (1957)
• Confess, Doctor Corda (1958)
• Bachelor of Hearts (1958)
• The Rest Is Silence (1959)
• Blind Date (1959)
• The Goose of Sedan (1959)
• Cry Double Cross (de) (Bumerang) (1960)
• Un taxi pour Tobrouk (1961)
• Zwei unter Millionen (de) (1961)
• Hatari! (1962)
• Sundays and Cybele (Les dimanches de ville d'Avray) (1962)
• Three Fables of Love (1962)
• Le Gros Coup (fr) (1964)
• The Uninhibited (1965)
• Le Chant du monde (1965)
• The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
• The Defector (1966)
• La Grande Sauterelle (fr) (1967)
• Le Franciscain de Bourges (fr) (1968)
• The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969)
• The Battle of Neretva (1969)
• The Lady of Monza (1969)
• The Red Tent (1969)
• Das Messer (de) (1971) (TV miniseries)
• What the Peeper Saw (1972)
• Le Solitaire (fr) (1973)
• Paper Tiger (1975)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• Potato Fritz (de) (1976)
• The Spy Who Never Was (Tod eines Fremden) (1976)
• À chacun son enfer (fr) (1977)
• A Bridge Too Far (1977)
• The Wild Geese (1978)
• Blue Fin (1978)
• High Society Limited (1982)
• Wrong Is Right (1982)
• Slagskämpen (sv) (The Inside Man) (1984)
• War and Remembrance (1988) (TV miniseries)
• Familiengeheimnisse - Liebe, Schuld und Tod (2011) (TV film)

Awards

• 1959 Bravo Otto (bronze)
• 1960 Bravo Otto (silver)
• 1983 Deutscher Filmpreis
• 1986 Goldene Kamera
• 2001 Bavarian Film Awards Honorary Award
• 2001 Officier de la Légion d’Honneur
• 2008 Bambi: Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2009 Grand Cross of Merit, neck cross

[ Source: Wikipedia ]