Horst Tappert

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Horst Tappert

Born Horst Tappert
May 26, 1923(1923-05-26)
Elberfeld, Germany
Died December 13, 2008 (aged 85)
Munich, Germany
Spouse(s) Ursula Pistor (1957)
Official website

Horst Tappert (May 26, 1923 − December 13, 2008) was a German actor who is most famous for playing Inspector Stephan Derrick in the television drama Derrick.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal). His father was a civil servant. Following high school, Tappert was drafted into the army for Germany in World War II and became a prisoner of war. Following the war, he was hired as a bookkeeper at a theater in Stendal, Germany and became interested in acting himself. He took acting classes and gave his stage debut in Stendal, Germany, playing Dr. Stribel in Paul Helwig's Die Flitterwochen.

In the following years, he changed employers several times and, in 1956, started working at the Kammerspiele Munich. He had been an independent actor since 1967 and worked as an actor until he died.

In the late 1950s, Tappert started taking part in movie and television productions. His big breakthrough was in 1966 with the three-part television show Die Gentlemen bitten zur Kasse, in which he played post office robber Michael Donegan. In 1968, he changed sides by playing Scotland Yard detective Perkins in Edgar Wallace movies. When the second public TV station in Germany, the ZDF, started planning a new mystery series with a different type of investigator in 1973, he was chosen for the character of detective Stephan Derrick, with sidekick assistant Harry Klein (played by Fritz Wepper).

The character of Stephan Derrick has become a cult figure all over the world. The series was licensed in 104 countries of the world and was equally popular with the Chinese, Japanese, Italians and pope John Paul II. The last of 281 episodes was filmed in 1998, when Tappert had reached his self-imposed age limit of 75 years for being a TV actor.

Thanks to "Derrick", Horst Tappert was the only German actor with fan clubs abroad.[citation needed]

Divorced twice, he lived in Gräfelfing near Munich with his third wife Ursula Pistor (since 1957). He was the father of three children (Karin, Ralph and Gary). Tappert enjoyed fishing and hunting.

In December 2001, one of Tappert's sons, Gary, died of organ failure after having gone into a coma. He was 52, and an architect.

Horst Tappert died in Munich on December 13, 2008.[1]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Books

  • Heyne-Verlag, ed. (1999). Derrick und ich. Meine zwei Leben (Derrick and I. My two lifes (1st ed.). Munich, Germany: Heyne-Verlag Munich. ISBN 3-453-15000-7. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ earthtimes

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Tappert"
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