Jürgen Prochnow (German pronunciation: [ˈjʏʁɡn̩ ˈpʁɔxnoː] ; born 10 June 1941) is a German actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Commander "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film Das Boot.[1]
He is also known for his roles in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), Dune (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The English Patient (1996), Air Force One (1997), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and for playing Sergei Bazhaev on the eighth season of 24 (2010). He is a Goldene Kamera, Bavarian Film Awards, and Bambi Award winner.
Prochnow was born in Berlin and brought up in Düsseldorf, as the son of an engineer.[2]
Prochnow starred in the World War II drama Forbidden (1985), which earned a German Film Award nomination for Outstanding Feature Film. He had a significant supporting role in The Seventh Sign (1988).
Prochnow portrayed Arnold Schwarzenegger in See Arnold Run, a 2005 film about the actor's political career in California. He played Commander Paul Gerald in Wing Commander (1999). He was the main antagonist in the Broken Lizard film, Beerfest (2006).
Prochnow dubbed Sylvester Stallone's voice in the German version of Rocky (1976) and Rocky II (1979), as well as F.I.S.T and Paradise Alley (both 1978). He later acted alongside Stallone in the 1995 movie Judge Dredd. After the retirement of Stallone's long-time voice actor Thomas Danneberg, Prochnow assumed this job in 2018 with Creed II. He usually also dubs his own roles in English-language productions.[3]
Prochnow and his older brother, Dieter appeared in The Man Inside (1990), in which Jürgen played the leading role and Dieter a supporting role.
In 1996, he was a member of the jury at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.[4]
In the early 1980s, Prochnow was in a relationship with Austrian actress Antonia Reininghaus, who fatally poisoned their 7-year-old daughter, Johanna, in 1987. In 1982, he married actor Jürgen Goslar's daughter, Isabel Goslar, with whom he has two children: a daughter, Mona, and a son, Roman. The couple divorced in 1997. From 2004 until the divorce in 2014, he was married to Birgit Stein, a German actress and screenwriter. Stein died in August 2018 in a motorcycle accident in Kanab, Utah.[5] Since 2015, he has been married to actress Verena Wengler.[6]
Prochnow used to divide his time between Los Angeles and Munich. He received U.S. citizenship in 2004.[7] In 2017, he announced that he had sold his house in California and would be moving to Berlin.[8]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)