German actor Udo Kier, who starred in 'My Own Private Idaho,' dies at 81
German actor Udo Kier, known for his films My Own Private Idaho and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, has passed away at 81.
His partner, artist Delbert McBride, told Variety that the actor died on Nov. 23 morning.
Born in Cologne in 1994, Kier was welcomed to the world in rubble, as the hospital was bombed during World War II. He wanted to get out of Germany, sharing in a 2002 interview with the Guardian that he intended to "get out of the misery [he] was born into."
He moved to London at 18 and began acting in 1966. A few years later, he was on a plane next to Andy Warhol's cinematic collaborator Paul Morrissey and got his big break in Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974).
Kier, whose career spans six decades and over 220 films, went on to portray monsters like vampires in several movies like Blade, Dracula 3000, Shadow of the Vampire, and BloodRayne.
Apart from Morrissey, he was also a collaborator of acclaimed Danish director Lars von Trier, with whom he worked on Epidemic, Europa, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac: Vol. II.
He bagged his first American role in My Own Private Idaho. A fan of the 1991 coming-of-age drama, Madonna worked with Kier for her coffee table book Sex and several other music videos like Erotica and Deeper and Deeper.
Apart from TV and film, Kier lent his voice to several video games like Call of Duty: WWII, Martha is Dead. One of his last projects includes Hideo Kojima's unreleased horror game OD, which also stars It's Sophia Lillis and Euphoria's Hunter Schafer.
“I don’t calculate it, but I want to do something in a movie which people will remember,” he told Variety in a November 2024 interview looking back at his career. “I’m not an actor who is happy to get a script and do exactly what is written. That would be boring. I have to bring something of my own personality into the film.”