George was born inBerlin-Wannsee into a well known acting family: his father,Heinrich George, was a famous film and theater actor, and his mother,Berta Drews, acharacter actress. George is named after his father's favorite, Imperial KnightGötz von Berlichingen. His father was imprisoned by the Soviets and starved in the Soviet concentration campNKVD special camp Nr. 7. George grew up inBerlin with his elder brother Jan and his mother. He attended school in Berlin-Lichterfelde and later attended theLyzeum Alpinum in Zuoz, Switzerland.
George made his stage debut in 1950, performing a role inWilliam Saroyan'sMy Heart's in the Highlands. From 1955 to 1958 he also studied at the Berlin UFA-Nachwuchsstudio, though he received the crucial part of his acting education between 1958 and 1963. Following his mother's advice he occasionally played at the Deutsches Theater inGöttingen under the direction ofHeinz Hilpert. After Hilpert's death, George would never join a fixed theater company again, although he did regularly perform on tours and as a guest performer.
In 1953, he was able to get a small film role next toRomy Schneider inWhen the White Lilacs Bloom Again. In the same year he played, as he would often do from then on, next to his mother inShakespeare'sRichard III. After small movie parts during the 1950s, Götz George broke through with audiences and critics in the filmJacqueline (1959). George was awarded theBundesfilmpreis and thePreis der Filmkritik for his role. In 1962 he received theBambi Award as the most popular actor.
In the sixties, George got the chance to show that he is able to do more than playing sappy peasants, through roles in movies such asKirmes, playing a desperateWehrmachtdeserter, andHerrenpartie. More often, though, he performed in comedies and action-oriented movies which benefited from his physical presence. He became well known to a broad audience when, during his theater tour in Göttingen,Horst Wendlandt persuaded him to play in one of theKarl May series of films, which he started in 1962 withDer Schatz im Silbersee. It was originally planned to give him the lead role, but this plan was abandoned whenLex Barker was hired to play the role ofOld Shatterhand, so George played the farmer son Fred Engel. George performed all stunts himself, even in his lead role as sheriff inSie nannten ihn Gringo.
In the 1970s, he turned primarily to stage roles and to television, including the many episodes ofDer Kommissar,Tatort,Derrick, andThe Old Fox for which he would become famous. It was not until 1977 that he was cast in a prominent role again, playing Franz Lang inDeath Is My Trade, a character modeled afterAuschwitz commanderRudolf Höß.
George probably had his greatest popular success in the eighties on TV: in Tatort episodes of the WDR, broadcast from 1981 to 1991, he portrayed working-class police officerHorst Schimanski, who eventually became a cult figure in Germany. In 1984 and 1987 he again won theBambi Award as the most popular actor.[2] The series ofSchulz & Schulz movies, starting in 1989 and dealing with the issue of theGerman reunification, gave him the opportunity to show his talents as a comedian in a double role, as did the role of the industry consultantMorlock [de] in the series of the same name, which is rather far removed from the roughneck charm of senior commissar Schimanski.
Among George's most impressive roles in the nineties were his appearances in the television movieDer Sandmann [de] ('The Sandman'), in which he portrayed the alleged serial killer and writer Henry Kupfer as a cold, calculating and manipulative intellectual, the movieDeathmaker (Der Totmacher), in which he portrayedFritz Haarmann (The Butcher of Hanover), and in the television movieThe Bubi Scholz Story [de] (based onBubi Scholz), the trauma of an aged, broken boxer.
George was married toLoni von Friedl from 1966 to 1976; the couple's daughter, Tanja-Nicole, was born in 1967. From 1997, he lived together with Hamburg journalistMarika Ullrich; the couple married in 2014.[3]
He died in 2016 at the age of 77 after a short illness.[4]
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