Bruno Ganz has passed away

Bruno Ganz has died aged 77. The Swiss actor died at home in Zurich on Friday night, his management said.

Ganz made his film debut in 1960 with a role in Der Herr mit der schwarzen Melone. He then worked in theatre and was the 1976 film Sommergäste that truly launched his film career. He has worked with directors Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Éric Rohmer, and Francis Ford Coppola, among others. In 1977, he co-starred with Dennis Hopper in Wenders’s American Friend, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. In 1979, he starred opposite Klaus Kinski in Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht. He starred opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in The Boys from Brazil (1978). In 1987, Ganz first played the role of the angel Damiel in Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire. He reprised the role in Wenders’ film Faraway, So Close! in 1993. Ganz portrayed Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004).

At the time of his death, Ganz was the holder of the Iffland-Ring, an accolade to the German-speaking actor judged “most significant and worthy”. The ring is passed from person to person, and it is not yet clear who Ganz had intended it to transfer to on the occasion of his death.

He was an incredible actor and he will be missed.