Hans Meyer (actor)

Hans Meyer (21 July 1925 – 3 April 2020) was a French actor. In Britain, he was known for his portrayal of Hauptmann Franz Ulmann in the television series Colditz.^[1]

Meyer was born to German parents in Paulpietersburg, Natal Province, South Africa^[2] in July 1925.^[1] He worked initially as a model^[1] where he posed for book covers until a friend in Germany working for an advertising agency lined up his first work as an actor, a television advert for Puschkin Vodka.^[1][2] The brand became Germany's best-selling vodka and Meyer became known as "Frank S. Thorn, the Puschkin Man".

Meyer was hired by Anatole Litvak as an extra for his film The Night of the Generals (1967).^[1] He went on the play supporting roles in French films alongside French cinema stars such as Lino Ventura, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo. In 1966, he was engaged for La grande vadrouille, where he embodied an angry SS representative. In 1968 he played in the action thriller The Devil's Garden by Yves Boisset.^[1] In 1969, he took on the role of Sheriff Blade in the thriller Les Étrangers, shot in Spain.

In the 1970s, Meyer acted in the Western Cannon for Cordoba (1970), in the role of the Swedish major Svedborg, the leader of a private mercenary army. He played a continuous series role in the British television series Colditz (1972–1974). In 1975 he had a small role in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of Barry Lyndon. In 1978, he appeared in the miniseries Holocaust: The History of the Weiss Family, in which played the SS official Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

In the 1980s, Meyer's roles included an assassin, whom Yves Rénier and title heroine Claude Jade ultimately put to the test in the television movie The Girlfriend from Childhood (L'amie d'enfance, 1981), from the Commissaire Moulin series. Meyer portrayed Red Sonja's father in Red Sonja (1985) opposite Brigitte Nielsen.^[1]

In the 1990s, he appeared on The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes as Hebworth/Veitch in "The Master Blackmailer" (1992), and in a small part as a German Officer in Steven Spielberg's and George Lucas's The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992).^[1]

In the 2000s, Meyer's roles included Marquis d'Apcher in the French cult movie Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001),^[3] Konrad Adenauer in the television movie How Much We Hated Each Other (2007), and Luis Aramchek in the Hitler in Hollywood (2010). His final screen appearance was in the thriller Cruel (2014).^[1]

Meyer died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France on 3 April 2020 at the age of 94.^[4][1]

• Hans Meyer at IMDb
• hansmeyer.info The official Hans Meyer website