Karlheinz Böhm

Acting

Karlheinz Böhm

Born 1928-03-16 · Darmstadt, Germany

Karlheinz Böhm was an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. Before that, he had played the young Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the three Sissi movies. He made three notable U.S. films in 1962. He played Jakob Grimm in the 1962 MGM-Cinerama spectacular The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and Ludwig van Beethoven in the Walt Disney film The Magnificent Rebel. (The latter film was made especially for the Disney anthology television series, but was released theatrically in Europe.) He appeared in a villainous role as the Nazi-sympathizing son of Paul Lukas in the MGM film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a Technicolor, widescreen remake of the 1921 silent Rudolph Valentino film. Between 1974 and 1975, Böhm appeared prominently in four consecutive films from prolific New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Martha, Effi Briest, Faustrecht der Freiheit (aka Fistfight of Freedom or Fox and His Friends), and Mutter Küsters' Fahrt zum Himmel (Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven). In 2009 he provided the German voice for Charles Muntz, villain in Pixar's tenth animated feature Up. Since 1981, when he founded Menschen für Menschen ("Humans for Humans"), Böhm had been actively involved in charitable work in Ethiopia, for which in 2007 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood among Peoples. Karlheinz Böhm has been married to Almaz Böhm, a native of Ethiopia, since 1991. They had two children, Nicolas (born 1990) and Aida (born 1993). Böhm had five more children from previous marriages, among them, the actress Katharina Böhm (born 1964). In 2011 Almaz and Karlheinz Böhm were awarded the Essl Social Prize for the project Menschen für Menschen. He died in 2014, aged 86.

Acting credits

Peeping Tom poster
7.5

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.

Peeping Tom

1960

Sissi poster
7.3

The young Bavarian princess Elisabeth, who all call Sissi, goes with her mother and older sister Néné to Austria where Néné will be wed to an emperor named Franz Joseph, Yet unexpectedly Franz runs into Sissi while out fishing and they fall in love.

Sissi

1955

Sissi: The Young Empress poster
7.0

Sissi is now the empress of Austria and attempts to learn etiquette. While she is busy being empress she also has to deal with her difficult new mother-in-law, while the arch-duchess Sophie is trying to tell the emperor how to rule and also Sissi how to be a mother.

Sissi: The Young Empress

1956

Come Fly with Me poster
5.0

Three airline hostesses combine their work crossing the Atlantic with searching for a rich handsome man to marry.

Come Fly with Me

1963

Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven poster
7.7

Frau Emma Küsters prepares dinner late one seemingly-ordinary afternoon in her seemingly-ordinary Frankfurt kitchen. She wants to add canned sausages to the stew; her irritating daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. But the point is moot: Ernst Küsters has not only murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he's employed but succeeded that by committing suicide.

Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

1975

Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress poster
7.1

After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.

Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress

1957

Man müßte nochmal zwanzig sein poster
6.5

No synopsis available yet.

Man müßte nochmal zwanzig sein

1958

Effi Briest poster
6.6

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.

Effi Briest

1974

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm poster
5.9

The Grimm brothers Wilhelm and Jacob, known for their literary works in the nineteenth century, have their lives dramatized. Wilhelm fights to write something entertaining amongst the sea of dry, non-fiction books they write and he sets about collecting oral-tradition fairy tales to put into print. Their life story is countered with reenactments of three of their stories including "The Dancing Princess," "The Cobbler and the Elves" and "The Singing Bone."

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

1962

Fox and His Friends poster
7.2

Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He enters an abusive relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen in an attempt to climb the social ladder. His desperation for love and affection soon spirals into tragedy.

Fox and His Friends

1975

No artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Kur in Travemünde

1979

No artwork available
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Magic Graz

1972

No artwork available
8.0

Britta is the foster daughter of Professor Rydberg. The last 13 years she has lived with him and his son Sven. She and Sven are closely not only at the siblings' way. They are engaged.

Swedish Girl

1955

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse poster
6.0

In Argentina, one daughter of patriarch Madariaga is married to a Frenchman while the other is married to a German thus leading to a crisis when Nazi Germany occupies France and some Madariaga family members fight on opposite sides.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

1962

Salto Mortale poster
8.0

After some initial difficulties, the daughter of a circus director who died in an accident follows in her father’s footsteps and takes over the business.

Salto Mortale

1954

Unternehmen Schlafsack poster
10.0

During the closing stages of the Second World War, a bureaucratic mistake leads to a German officer being reassigned from the dangerous Eastern Front to Berlin and a new non-existent unit.

Unternehmen Schlafsack

1955

No artwork available
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Die heilige Lüge

1954

No artwork available
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Nina

1956

The Venetian Affair poster
4.9

Former CIA man, Bill Fenner, now a downbeat, loner journalist, is sent to Venice to investigate the shock suicide bombing by an American diplomat at a peace conference.

The Venetian Affair

1966

The Swap poster
5.0

Lorenz has his eye on Simon Gigl's prize-winning breeding bull and would love to have it. But is he willing to make a deal to give up his wife Uschi to Gigl for a week in exchange for the bull?

The Swap

1952

The House of the Three Girls poster
7.9

Vienna, 1826. The penniless composer Franz Schubert lives with friends in the house of court glazier Tschöll and his wife. Because of their three beautiful daughters, Hederl, Haiderl, and Hannerl, the property is called the "Three Girls' House." Hederl and Haiderl celebrate a double wedding with the gentlemen, master saddler Bruneder and postmaster Binder. Due to an intrigue by soprano Lucia Grisi, Hannerl, with whom Schubert is in love but dares not reveal herself, turns away from him and marries singer Franz von Schober. Schubert is left with nothing but music.

The House of the Three Girls

1958

Rififi in Tokyo poster
5.9

Van Hekken, an old gangster, arrives in Tokyo to direct a bank hold-up in order to get a very valuable diamond.

Rififi in Tokyo

1963

Mister Karl poster
NR

A documentary about the life of Karlheinz Böhm from his film career to his charity activities in Ethiopia.

Mister Karl

2008

Schloß Hubertus poster
4.5

For Count Egge, there is only one meaningful way of life: living in the magnificent natural surroundings of his mountains. Only hunting matters to him; he even neglects his own children for its sake. Inevitably, this leads to conflicts that result in tragic alienation within the family. These conflicts continue even after the youngest son, Willy, is found dead and Count Tassilo, the eldest, breaks with his father, whose stubbornness he can no longer bear.

Schloß Hubertus

1973