Jürgen Prochnow can look back on a long film and television career. It is telling that exactly 45 years ago he was dubbed the “Old Man” in Wolfgang Petersen’s masterwork Das Boot. When you chart the course of German acting exports, one thing becomes clear: whether as the gruff captain at the helm, as a ruthless dictator in “Air Force One,” or in so many less-than-stellar projects like Uwe Boll’s “House of the Dead” — Prochnow has never allowed himself to be pinned down to a single role. And that remains true to this day. On June 10 the actor turns 85. For many, it comes as a surprise: Prochnow played a gay character in a 1977 ARD television film — an appearance that almost cost him his role in Das Boot.
From Amateur to Profi
The 1941-born Berlin native did not have to search long for his life’s passion. Even in school, he joined early amateur theater groups. But his parents had hoped for a solid safety net for what they called this “career of bread without bread,” so Prochnow began an apprenticeship as a bank clerk.
Yet that path could not entirely pull him away from his true calling. He worked as an extra and lighting technician at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus on the side. After finishing the apprenticeship, he returned to the classroom: from 1963 to 1966 he studied acting, with later engagements sending him to the stages in Osnabrück, Aachen, Heidelberg and Bochum.
Anfänge im Fernsehen
As is common in these career arcs, Prochnow’s breakthrough came on television after the stage years and before the big screen. His TV debut came in 1970 with “Der Unternehmer.” Under the direction of Wolfgang Petersen he made his way three years later into the “Tatort” episode “Jagdrevier.”
From this partnership, one of the most productive German collaborations of the era would unfold in the years to come. Whether in Petersen’s first feature film “Einer von uns beiden” (1974), in the film that was then seen as scandalous at the time — the gay-themed “Die Konsequenz” — or in the aforementioned hits “Das Boot” and “Air Force One,” Petersen and Prochnow formed, much like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp or Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio years later, an inseparable director-actor duo.
‘The Consequence’ Provoked Conservative Germany
“Die Konsequenz” from 1977 is considered a milestone: Prochnow plays the gay actor Martin Kurath, who is imprisoned under the then-anti-homosexual Paragraph 175. There he falls in love with Thomas (Ernst Hannawald), the son of a prison guard. The film powerfully portrays the love between the two men and the relentless societal and institutional discrimination they endure.
When the film was slated to air on ARD in November 1977, the topic of homosexuality was still so taboo that the conservative Bayerischer Rundfunk opted out of the joint television program in protest and instead broadcast a replacement — just as in 1971 with the classic “Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt” (not the homosexual is perverse, but the circumstances of his life).
For Prochnow’s career, that decision nearly spelled the end: the actor later recalled in interviews that portraying a gay man nearly cost him the role of a lifetime. When Petersen wanted him for “Das Boot,” new financiers, including star producer Bernd Eichinger, initially tried to block it. Petersen, however, stood firm.
In the 1980s Prochnow appeared in David Lynch’s science-fiction epic “Dune” and played the antagonist to Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop II.” A decade later he demonstrated his versatility in the thriller “Body of Evidence” with Madonna, the Oscar-winning drama “The English Patient” and, around the same time, in “Judge Dredd” with Sylvester Stallone. By the way, Prochnow shares a special connection with Stallone: in “Rocky” and its sequel, as well as in other films and the TV series “Tulsa King,” Prochnow provides Stallone’s voice in German dubbing.
Seine größte Tragödie war kein Film
At the peak of his fame, Prochnow’s private life carried an unimaginable tragedy. His then-partner, Austrian actress Antonia Reininghaus, poisoned their daughter Johanna in 1987 and attempted suicide. Reininghaus survived, Johanna did not. “That pain lasts forever,” Prochnow said in a 2017 interview with tz. “I could never believe that my former partner would poison our daughter on her seventh birthday.”
He has been married three times so far. From his first marriage (1982–1997) to Isabel Goslar, he had two children, Mona and Roman. From 2004 to 2014 he was married to actress and director Birgit Stein, and since 2015 his wife has been Verena Wengler.
So mancher Fehltritt
Even a performer of Prochnow’s caliber is not immune to missteps. Films like Uwe Boll’s “House of the Dead” or “Bierfest” in the mid-2000s are certainly not among the high points of his long career. Yet where others might have faded into obscurity, Prochnow continued to land roles in big-budget productions. In the same year as “Bierfest,” for instance, he acted opposite Tom Hanks in “The Da Vinci Code.” In 2010 he went up against Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in the eighth season of “24.” And in 2015 alone he appeared in three films: “Hitman: Agent 47,” “Remember,” and “The Dark Side of the Moon.” In 2020 he returned to a role that echoed his most famous character in “The Old Man and the Nuisance” — a nod to Das Boot — once again portraying “The Old Man.” In 2023 he appeared alongside Pierce Brosnan in “The Last Rifleman.” A war drama titled “The Guardian Angel” is also in the works. Retreating from the spotlight, even though that move once signaled the start of his major breakthrough, Jürgen Prochnow clearly has no intention of slowing down at 85. (spot)
