Hans Meyer

Hans Meyer (21 July 1925 – 3 April 2020) was a South African actor born to a German family. He was best known for his role as Hauptmann Franz Ulmann in the British television series Colditz (1972–1974). Meyer was born in Paulpietersburg, Natal Province, Union of South Africa, in July 1925. Initially working as a model by posing for book covers, he began his acting career with a television commercial for Puschkin Vodka prepared by a friend who worked at an advertising agency in Germany. The brand became Germany's best-selling vodka, and Meyer was known as "Frank S. Thorn," The Puschkin Man. He was hired by Anatole Litvak to appear as a extra in the film The Night of the Generals. During the 1960s, he played supporting roles in numerous French films alongside French cinema stars such as Lino Ventura, Alain Delon, and Jean-Paul Belmondo. In 1966, he was cast in La grande vadrouille, where he portrayed an angry SS representative. In 1968, he appeared in Yves Boisset's action thriller The Devil's Garden. In 1969, he took on the role of Sherif Blade in the Spanish-made thriller Les Étrangers. In 1970, he played the Swedish Major Svedborg, leader of a special mercenary army under the name Cordoba, in Western Cannon. He had a small role in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation Barry Lyndon in 1975. During the 1970s, Meyer also worked in television, where he had a recurring role in the British series Colditz. In 1978, he appeared in the miniseries Holocaust – The History of the Weiss Family; in the film, he portrayed SS official Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the TV film The Girlfriend from Childhood (L'amie d'enfance, 1981) from the Commissaire Moulin series, he played the assassin who was ultimately subjected to testing by Yves Rénier and the protagonist Claude Jade. He later appeared in other television series. He subsequently appeared in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the French cult film Brotherhood of the Wolf. Meyer died at the age of 94 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, on 3 April 2020. Source: Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 from the English Wikipedia article "Hans Meyer (actor)".