Wolfgang Petersen, the German director whose films include Das Boot, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm, has died at the age of 81.
He died Friday of pancreatic cancer, surrounded by his family at his Los Angeles home, his assistant announced Tuesday.
Petersen was as popular in his adopted California as he was in his home country, having worked with stars such as Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Rene Russo, and Glenn Close throughout his career decades.
Shortly before his 80th birthday last year, Petersen told the dpa he wanted to “cause this birthday by chance”, joking that he was unaware of retirement and would likely be working at the age of 100 if he could.
He said he is not one who lives in the past: “For me, the view is ahead. I rarely watch the movies I’ve made. But Das Boot was definitely the big turning point. of my life and career ”.
The cinematic epic about the crew of a German submarine during World War II was nominated for six Oscars and paved the way for Petersen to Hollywood.
Petersen, at the time in his forties, was nominated for directing and adapted screenplay, as well as photography, editing, sound and sound editing. In the end, Gandhi, directed by the British Richard Attenborough, was the big winner of an Oscar. Das Boot left empty-handed, but it was the start of a great Hollywood career.
Petersen moved to Los Angeles with his wife Maria in 1987.
Petersen achieved another box office success with the fantasy short story The Neverending Story, followed by the sci-fi film Enemy Mine.
The political thriller In the Line Of Fire starring Clint Eastwood as a secret service agent was a smash hit at the box office in 1993. The hits followed in quick succession over the next decade: Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman, Air Force One with Harrison. Ford, The Perfect Storm with George Clooney, Troy with Brad Pitt.
It was not until 2006 that Poseidon, about an ocean disaster that struck a luxury cruise ship, made its success. The thriller, which cost about $ 160 million to make, went bankrupt all over the world.
Wolfgang Petersen was born in Emden, Germany on March 14, 1941 and grew up in Hamburg. Subsequently, he honed his art at the German Academy of Film and Television in Berlin.
In 1971 he had instant success with his work on the popular German crime series Tatort. Petersen later became known as a pain in the ass with the 1977 film Die Konsequenz, which deals with same-sex love.
In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Petersen planned a directing project in Germany: a love story between a KGB agent and a young East German woman, based on an actual incident shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall. The project has never seen the light.