Last year, just when I laid the finishing touches on KRIMI! #0, Elisa Montéz died. She had been part of the featured Jess Franco film DER TODESRÄCHER VON SOHO and I thought how strange it was that she passed away, just as I finished this article.
Well, what can I say, last week I finished the article on RIALTO LONDON, going into their last project, PRAYING MANTIS, a TV movie no-one talks about nowadays. And as I pulled that one out of oblivion, so came Arthur Brauss to my attention:As part of the German part of the production, together with Rialto veteran Pinkas Braun and Friedrich von Thun (you should really go out of your ordinary way to watch him in COLD HELL/DIE HÖLLE-INFERNO (2006)).
An accomplished pole vaulter in his youth (German Junior Champion in 1954), he worked as a factory worker before accepting an athletic scholarship to the University of Wyoming in the USA. There, he studied mathematics and economics and discovered his affinity for acting on the college stage. Brauss returned to Germany in 1960; his English skills helped him find work at Radio Free Europe. As "Art Brauss," he made his film debut three years later. From the beginning, he was in high demand for supporting roles in international productions, primarily action films such as DER ZUG (1964)
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He quickly became a staple player for German TV and low-budget excess movies such as Radley Metzger's CARMEN BABY 1967, the Jerry Cotton movies DIE RECHNUNG EISKALT SERVIERT & TODESSCHÜSSE AM BROADWAY (1966 & 1969); and HEISSES PFLASTER KÖLN (1967) one of the local vice Krimis that took over Germany between the EDGAR WALLACE movies and the SCHULMÄDCHENREPORT craze. He even appeared in Wolf C. Hartwig's last HONGKONG movie (DAS MÄDCHEN VON HONGKONG 1973).
Being part of the circle around Reinicker and Tappert, he would often co-star in their movies or TV-productions (PERRAK)
He was that much at home in TV-Krimis that you would expect his face sooner or later to appear when either DERRICK or TATORT were on.
Of course, he would appear in RIALTOs EDGAR WALLACE TV-Series (in DIE KATZE VON KENSINGTON (1996) and our featured film: PRAYING MANTIS (1981)
A behind-the-scenes man, he drove car races, and organized an annual charity golf tournament and played classical guitar.
There is a very in-deep interview with him about all the people he had worked with (Vohrer, Reinl, Metzger etc.) in German HERE.
Shortly before his death he married Marie Picolin, his partner for more than 50 years.
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