Pierre Brice | |
|---|---|
 Pierre Brice, in 2004 | |
| Born | (1929-02-06)6 February 1929 Brest, France |
| Died | 6 June 2015(2015-06-06) (aged 86) Compiègne, France |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Nationality | French |
| Period | 1962–1997 |
| Genre | Western |
Pierre-Louis Le Bris (6 February 1929 – 6 June 2015), known asPierre Brice, was aFrench actor, best known as portrayingfictionalApache-chiefWinnetou in Germanfilms based on Karl May novels.[1][2]
Brice was born inBrest,Brittany, France. When he was 19, Brice enlisted in theFrench Army and fought in theFirst Indochina War. While patrolling in Indochina, one of his team triggered a mine and its explosion sent Brice whirling through the air, but left him virtually unhurt. Member of theCommandos Marine, special forces units of theFrench Navy, he served later as a paratrooper during theAlgerian War.[3]
From 1962 to 1968 he acted in a total of eleven West GermanWestern movies adapted from novels by German authorKarl May, in which he played the fictionalNative American chiefWinnetou of the Mescalero Apache tribe, alongsideLex Barker (7 movies),Stewart Granger (3 movies) andRod Cameron (1 movie) as co-stars. After the films he also played this role at theKarl May Festspiele in Elspe from 1977 to 1980 and 1982 to 1986 and at theKarl May Festival inBad Segeberg open-air theatre, Germany, from 1988 to 1991; he also worked there until 1999 as director of several open-air theatre productions. (The open-air theatre inBad Segeberg is dedicated only to productions of Karl May plays.)
Besides theatre productions, he was mainly seen in TV-series, includingEin Schloß am Wörthersee (A Castle by theWörthersee) andDie Hütte am See (Lakeview Cottage). In 1979 Brice again playedWinnetou in a 14-part TV series calledMein Freund Winnetou (My friend Winnetou – Winnetou le Mescalero), which did not originate from Karl May material. In 1997 he appeared in a two-partTVmini seriesWinnetous Rückkehr [de] (The Return of Winnetou), which earned devastating criticism from the fans, since the character had died in the movieWinnetou III and now suddenly returned to life. Again, this did not originate from writings by Karl May.[citation needed]
Brice tried to escape the Winnetou character in a 1976 TV series,Star Maidens, and in several movies for the big screen, playingZorro in the ItalianZorro contro Maciste (1963). He also worked withTerence Hill (still calledMario Girotti at the time) inShots in Threequarter Time (1965), with Lex Barker in a non-Karl May filmThe Hell of Manitoba (a.k.a.A Place Called Glory) (1965) and in the anthologyKiller's Carnival (1966).[citation needed]
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Like Lex Barker (who recorded two tracks as a singer), Brice tried to sing with the help of German composerMartin Boettcher, and even managed to issue several singles and CDs. Most of the songs were in German and, as Brice did not understand the language at the time of recording, he had tosing them phonetically.
