Born
in Germany in 1929, Horst studied business in school, before being
called up into the army for the last few months of the Second World
War. After the war he found work as a night watchman and painter before
becoming involved in stage acting. In 1956 he was offered work on Swiss
television and was soon working in his first film role as a cowardly
pilot in the German war film
The Star of Africa
(1957). German cinema at the time was still recovering from the
damaging effects of the war, and one of the most popular genres was the
war film itself - telling the stories from the German perspectives, the
films aimed to create a distinction between the Nazi Party commanders,
and the soldiers on the ground who were shown as being brave men,
forced into a war that most of them did not believe in. Frank starred
in a number of these films, including
Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959) and U-boat drama
Sharks and Little Fish (1957). One of his few top-billed roles would come in
A Head for the Devil (1959),
a low budget science/horror picture inspired by the American B-movies
of the 1950s and produced by the German exploitation director Wolf C.
Hartwig, responsible for the infamous
Schoolgirl Report films,
and a man for whom he would work over a dozen times down the years.
By now Frank had built himself a reputation as an effective
bad guy, a typecast that he rarely escaped and for most of his career, actively enjoyed.
At the beginning of the 1960s he starred in a pair of French films for radical director Claude Autant-Lara.
Les Bois des Amants
(1960) told the story of a romance between a German officer's wife, and
a French resistance fighter during the War, while the incredibly
controversial film
Tu ne Tueras Point (1961) described the ill treatment of conscientious objectors by the French
government - a very sore spot at the time, as the French were still trying to
hold on to their territories in Algeria using military force, and the
film was banned in several countries. Much more popular was the comic gangster movie
Monsieur Gangster
(1961) - with much of its
comedy coming from typically French wordplay, it has remained almost
unknown out of the country, but still ranks as one of the most popular
French movies and Frank had a key role as a henchman. Meanwhile, across the rest of Europe, the first James
Bond film,
Dr. No (1962) led to spy fever, and Frank starred in several low budget thrillers for Wolf Hartwig, including
The Black Panther of Ratana (1963) and
Hong Kong Hot Harbour (1964). More important however was Hartwig's production
The River Pirates of the Mississippi (1964) - inspired by the very popular German
Karl May Western
series and filmed in Jugoslavia, it saw Frank quickly associated with
the European Westerns and he was soon cast alongside Rod Cameron in the
pre-Leone
Spaghetti Western Le Pistole non discutono (1964), the first appearance a genre he would revisit frequently throughout its decade long spell.
The
1960s saw the beginning of the euro-exploitation boom, and Horst Frank
was right in the middle, by this time he had achieved marquee name
value for the German markets and was a popular choice for producers and
directors wanting a German name in their production (especially one
without the temperament that came with
Klaus Kinski!). As well as a variety of Spaghetti Western titles, including
Johnny Hamlet (1968) for Enzo G. Castellari and
Preparati la bara! (1968) for
Ferdinando Baldi, he starred in a duo of films by Umberto Lenzi - the action, war movie
Desert Commandos (1967) and the early giallo
So Sweet... So Perverse (1969) as well as a pair of titles from the master of Euro-exploitation
Harry Alan Towers -
The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967) alongside
Christopher Lee and
Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969) directed by
Jess Franco. There were occasional television performances, including the lead role in a German adaptation of
Caligula (1966) and in an episode of the American wartime spy thriller series
Blue Light (1966), filmed in Germany, one of three episodes from the series that would later be edited into a feature film -
I Deal in Danger (1966).
Come the 1970s, exploitation still reigned, but alongside giallo titles
Eye in the Labyrinth (1972) and Dario Argento's
Cat O Nine Tails (1971), and the later
Spaghetti Westerns The Grand Duel (1972) and
Carambola
(1974), Frank started to move back into more domestic work - appearing
in German television films, as well as lending his distinctive voice to
a variety of radio plays and film dubs. After a very curious role as an
African albino native trying to fight the white colonisers in
Whispering Death (1976), that also starred
Christopher Lee as a police detective, Frank had his last cinematic appearance, top billed in the German sci-fi film
Operation Ganymed
(1977) - the futuristic story of a group of astronauts who lose contact
with Earth and return to find it seemingly desolate. Although initally
a television production, it did play theatrically in Germany in 1980 as
Hero - Lost in the Dust of Stars. Throughout the 1980s Frank appeared in a range of television films and series including the popular romantic drama
Dreamship and the fantasy, mystery serial
Mandara (1983). As well making a series of stage tours, he published an autobiography
„Leben heißt Leben“ (
Life is called Life)
in 1981. Into the 1990s he was still making appearances in a variety of
television series - his last major work was in the big budget German
television film
Catherine the Great
(1995) which starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Rhys-Davies and Paul
McGann - and he continued to act up until 1999 when he died, just 3
days short of his 70th Birthday.
Ultimately,
despite over 100 film and television appearances to his credit, Horst
Frank was never able to achieve the international fame of many of his
contemporaries - the lack of a major American film on his credits
prevented him from receiving top billing across the Atlantic. However,
among the ranks of cult European actors, the eternal "bad guy" is
certain to always be recognised for his many fine performances, even in
the depths of the exploitation cinema where he spent much of his career.
