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Klaus Kinski (; born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski 18 October 1926 – 23 November 1991) IMDb database. Retrieved 21 October 2017 was a German actor. Equally renowned for his intense performance style and notorious for his volatile personality,Peter Geyer (2026). 351818220X, Suhrkamp. 351818220X (2026). 9781557509659, Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781557509659 he appeared in over 130 film roles in a career that spanned 40 years, from 1948 to 1988. He is best known for starring in five films directed by Werner Herzog from 1972 to 1987 ( Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu the Vampyre; Woyzeck; Fitzcarraldo; and Cobra Verde), who would later chronicle their tumultuous relationship in the documentary My Best Fiend.
Kinski's roles spanned multiple genres, languages, and nationalities, including Spaghetti Westerns, horror films, , dramas, and Edgar Wallace krimi films. His infamy was elevated by a number of eccentric creative endeavors, including a one-man show based on the life of Jesus Christ, a biopic of violinist Niccolò Paganini directed by and starring himself, and over twenty spoken word albums.
Kinski was prone to emotional and often violent outbursts aimed at his directors and fellow cast members, issues complicated by a history of Mental disorder. Herzog described him as "one of the greatest actors of the century, but also a monster and a great pestilence."
Posthumously, he was accused of physically and sexually abusing his daughters Pola Kinski and Nastassja Kinski. His notoriety and prolific output have developed into a widespread cult following and a reputation as a Pop icon.
Kinski was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1943 at the age of 17, serving in a Fallschirmjäger unit. He saw no action until the winter of 1944, when his unit was transferred to the German-occupied Netherlands and he was captured by the British Army on his second day of combat."Klaus Kinski", Variety, 1991 In his 1988 autobiography, he claimed that he had decided to desert from the Wehrmacht and had been recaptured by German forces and sentenced to death in a court-martial before escaping and hiding in the woods, subsequently encountering a British patrol which shot him in the arm and captured him. After being treated for his wounds and interrogated, he was transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Colchester, Essex; the ship transporting him to Britain was torpedoed by a German U-boat but arrived safely.
In his documentary My Best Fiend, Werner Herzog claimed that Kinski had fabricated much of his 1988 autobiography, including claims of maternal sexual abuse, incest, and childhood poverty; according to Herzog, Kinski was actually raised in a financially stable upper middle class family.
Arriving in Berlin, he learned his father had died during the war, and his mother had been killed in an Allied air attack on the city.
For three months in 1955, Kinski lived in the same boarding house as a 13-year-old Werner Herzog, who would later direct him in a number of films. In My Best Fiend, Herzog described how Kinski once locked himself in the communal bathroom for 48 hours and broke everything in the room.
In March 1956, he made a guest appearance at Vienna's Burgtheater in Goethe's Torquato Tasso. Although respected by his colleagues, among them Judith Holzmeister, and cheered by the audience, Kinski did not gain a permanent contract after the Burgtheater's management became aware of his earlier difficulties in Germany. Kinski then unsuccessfully tried to sue the company.
Living jobless in Vienna, Kinski reinvented himself as a monologist and spoken word artist. He presented the prose and verse of François Villon, William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, amongst others, and toured Austria, Germany, and Switzerland with his shows.
During the 1960s and 1970s, he appeared in various European exploitation films, as well as more acclaimed works such as Doctor Zhivago (1965), in which he appeared as an anarchist prisoner on his way to the Gulag.
He relocated to Italy during the late 1960s, and found roles in numerous Spaghetti Westerns, including For a Few Dollars More (1965), A Bullet for the General (1966), The Great Silence (1968), Twice A Judas (1969), and A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe (1975). In 1977, he starred as the RZ guerrillero Wilfried Böse in Operation Thunderbolt, based on the events of the Entebbe raid. Kinski's work with Werner Herzog brought him international recognition. They made five films together: (1972), Woyzeck (1979), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987). The working relationship between the two was contentious; Herzog had threatened, on occasion, to murder Kinski. In one incident, Kinski was said to have been saved by his dog, which attacked Herzog as he crept up to supposedly burn down the actor's house. Herzog has refused to comment on his numerous other plans to kill Kinski. However, he did pull a gun on Kinski, or at least threatened to do so, on the set of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, after the actor threatened to walk off the set. Late in the filming of Fitzcarraldo in Peru, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe offered to kill Kinski for Herzog, but the director declined.
In 1980, Kinski refused the lead villain role of Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, telling director Steven Spielberg that the script was "a yawn-making, boring pile of shit" and "moronically shitty". Kinski would go on to play Kurtz, an Israeli intelligence officer, in The Little Drummer Girl, a feature film by George Roy Hill in 1984.
Kinski co-starred in the science fiction television film Timestalkers with William Devane and Lauren Hutton. His last film was Paganini (1989), which he wrote, directed, and starred in as Niccolò Paganini.
Kinski published his autobiography, All I Need Is Love, in 1988 (reprinted in 1996 as Kinski Uncut). The book prompted his second daughter, Nastassja Kinski, to file a libel suit against him, which she afterward withdrew.
In an interview published by the German tabloid Bild on 14 January 2013, Kinski's younger daughter and Pola's half-sister, Nastassja, said their father would embrace her in a sexual manner when she was 4–5 years old, but never raped her. Nastassja has expressed support for Pola and said that she was always afraid of their father, whom she described as an unpredictable tyrant.
In a scathing obituary of Kinski published in 1991, Spanish film director Fernando Colomo alleged that Kinski had tried to rape actress Maria Lamor during the filming of The Knight of the Dragon.
In 2006, Christian David published the first comprehensive biography of Kinski, based on newly discovered archived material, personal letters and interviews with the actor's friends and colleagues. Peter Geyer published a paperback book of essays on Kinski's life and work.
In 2025, Benjamin Myers published Jesus Christ Kinski, a novel written from Kinski's imagined point of view during his performance of Jesus Christus Erlöser.
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