Fritz Wepper Biography, Age, Wife, Daughter, Movies and TV Shows, Family, Ex Girlfriend

Fritz Wepper Biography

Fritz Wepper is a German actor born on 17th August 1941 in Munich, Germany. He is popularly known for his role as Inspector Harry Klein in the long-running crime series Derrick. 

Fritz Wepper Age

He was born on 17th August 1941 in Munich, Germany ( 76 years as at 2017)

Fritz Wepper Family

Fritz Wepper parents are Wilhelmine Wepper, mother, and Friedrich Karl Wepper, father. His father went missing in the beginning of 1945 in poland . He has one sibling Elmar Wepper who is also an actor

Fritz Wepper Wife

In 1979 he married Angela Von Morgan, they aprtially separated in in 2009 when Wepper began a relationship with Susanne Kellermann but they later reconciled.

Fritz Wepper Daughter

He has a daughter Sophie who is also an actress, they appeared together in the series Mord in bester Gesellschaft. He has another daughter, Filippa, born in 2012 from the relationship with Susanne Kellermann.

Fritz Wepper Ex Girlfriend

In 2009 Fritz Wepper began dating Susanne Kellermann, a cinematographer and director. They lived together by 2012 and had a daughter. Fritz later returned to his wife but he remained friends with Susanne.

On 19th April 2018 during Susanne forty-fourth birthday Fritz wrote a public letter that the magazine “Bunte” prints in its new edition. It states, among other things, “After you have done much injustice in public, I would like to put you in the right light and say what you have done for me: You have saved me twice the life.”

In 2011, “Sanne” saved him for the first time. Wepper had a small scratch on the arm of his dog Aron. After a mild fever in the night, she insisted that a doctor examine the wound on the set for the filming “For God’s sake.” After closing time Weber was still driving to a clinic. There they gave him a pack of antibiotics and the advice “Rest, Mr. Wepper” with home.

“You did not like my condition at all,” writes Wepper. “You have prevailed against my vehement opposition that I was examined again in the hospital Bogenhausen. You kept me there immediately – Diagnosis: blood poisoning, acute danger to life.” The next day, the senior physician said: “Mr. Wepper, if you had not come to the hospital last night, you would have gone bust.”

The letter closes with heart-warming words: “Sanne, the fact that you have saved my life twice has ultimately given me a special emotional quality of life.” The sentence “That I may still experience that …” is no empty phrase for me. Thank you from the heart and embrace! Happy Birthday! Your Fritz! ” With hearts after the z.

Fritz Wepper Career

Fritz Wepper began his career at the age of eleven when he appeared in a production of Peter Pan. He got his first important film role in Tischlein deck dich, a film adaption of the Brothers Grimm fairytale ‘The Wishing Table’. His breakthrough role was as a young soldier in Bernhard Wicki’s anti-war film ‘Die Brücke’ (1959) which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Wepper kept his popularity with German audiences into adulthood and appeared in several notable German films of the 1960s. In 1972 he played Fritz Wendel, a Jew passing as a Christian, in the Oscar-winning film version of Cabaret, opposite Liza Minnelli and Marisa Berenson.

He is popularly known for his role as Harry Klein, the assistant, in the long-running crime series ‘Derrick’. He played this role between 1974 and 1998 in 281 episodes of Derrick. Before playing Klein in Derrick he portrayed the same character on the popular television drama Der Kommissar (1969–1976) from the series’ start until 1974 when he was transferred to Derrick. Harry Klein was replaced by his brother Erwin (played by Fritz Wepper’s real-life brother Elmar Wepper).

Fritz and Elmar Wepper appeared together in the television series Zwei Brüder (1994-2000), playing a pair of different brothers hunting criminals and solve difficult cases. Since 2002, Wepper plays the tricky
Mayor Wolfgang Wöller in the immensely popular TV series Um Himmels Willen (with some 7.2 million views per episode).

Fritz Wepper

Fritz Wepper Movies and TV Shows

• 1955: The Dark Star
• 1956: Table, Donkey and Stick
• 1957: A crazy family
• 1959: The bridge
• 1961: Question 7
• 1963: Miracle of the White Stallions
• 1964: The River Line
• 1967: When night falls on the Reeperbahn
• 1968: The Doctor of St. Pauli
• 1968: Das Go-Go-Girl vom Blow-Up
• 1968: The Man with the Glass Eye
• 1969: On the Reeperbahn at Half Past Midnight
• 1970: We’ll Take Care of the Teachers
• 1970: The Games
• 1972: Cabaret
• 1972: What happened at Schloss Wildberg?
• 1982: The Last Battle
• 1968 – 1974: The Commissioner
• 1974 – 1998: Derrick
• 1994: Two brothers
• 1999 – 2000: The Trials of Vera B.
• 1996: Three in foreign beds
• 1999: The blue cannon
• 2001: Murder on the Orient Express
• 2002: Reverend becomes dad
• Since 2002: For heaven’s sake
• 2004: Men of dangerous age
• 2004: An angel named Hans-Dieter
• 2007: Kingdom Voice (TV)
• 200: An incorrigible stubborn
• since 2007: Murder in the best of company
• 2008: Our man in the south
• 2008: The dead in the moose forest
• 2008: The nights of the Lord Senator
• 2009: The sweet smell of evil
• 2009: Baby free house
• 2010: The vain face of death
• 2010: Everything bad for the wedding day
• 2011: Lindburgs Fall

Fritz Wepper Interview

Fritz Wepper was interviewed by Spiegel online about his role “Harry” has emancipated himself from his eternal role as a mate. Wepper is no longer under the thumb of Derrick, but leads as Lord Mayor Wöller in the Lower Bavarian regiment. Instead of chasing criminals, he has been plaguing himself since 2002 in the ARD series “For heaven’s sake” with rebellious nuns. One day caught the 73-year-old at the end of a long day of shooting, on the program was a tricky stairway.

Interviewer: Is it a good feeling to finally have no boss at the end of your career?

Fritz Wepper: One thing I have to make clear from the beginning: I do not suffer from the superior syndrome! That the viewers allowed me to have been Harry Klein and now to be perceived as Mayor Wöller: That was the highest honor for me as a credible actor. This role change was a quantum leap.

Interviewer: Still, it must have been frustrating to serve as a second man for 29 years – first as Erik Ode’s assistant to the “commissioner” and then as Harry to “Derrick”.

Fritz Wepper: Well, that was a double climb! When “Derrick” began in 1974, Harry was promoted from Inspector General to Inspector – and we switched from black and white to color. But it’s true: in the dramaturgy, I was the same.

Interviewer: the chauffeur, the assistant, the second ever.

Fritz Wepper: Even if Derrick played the first fiddle – I was never far away. I could give the Horst the water!

Interviewer: Your favorite episodes on “Derrick”?

Fritz Wepper: Once a year there was a Harry episode without Horst Tappert. It was the nicest thing to do it alone.

Interviewer: And Harry never wanted to quit, although on several occasions the rumor circulated by the office-weary assistant?

Fritz Wepper: Not a word! I am reliable and keep my contracts.

Interviewer: That’s why in 1972 you even missed your chance to make a career in Hollywood.

Fritz Wepper: That was bitter. I had participated with Liza Minelli in the US movie “Cabaret” and was not allowed to fly to the Oskar Awards because we shot the “Commissioner”. Later, I was promised a role on Broadway. When I mentioned to the agent that I still had commitments in Germany, it said, “Okay, forget it, Fritz.” I was in my early thirties, that was very hard for me.

Interviewer: Since when was it clear that you wanted to be an actor?

Fritz Wepper: When I was nine, I was in the Prinzregententheater in Munich and saw “Zar and Zimmermann”, that was the initial spark. I knew: this is my world! At eleven, in 1952, I played my first role in “Peter Pan” – before the rehearsals we climbed over Schuttberge. After the premiere, I dictated to a journalist: “Yeah, you know, I’ve always wanted to go to the theater.” That he did not take me seriously baffled me at the time.

Interviewer: your role models?

Fritz Wepper: As a kid, I’ve seen all the cowboy movies, idolized John Wayne, and all the others. Later, men like Walter Matthau and Tony Curtis joined in, great actors. “Comedy is a dead serious job”, it says – I see myself mainly as a comedian.

Interviewer: “Derrick” was not good at first. What was it?

Fritz Wepper: The spectators did not like the fact that the perpetrator was known from the beginning, although that worked well with “Columbo”. As script writer Herbert Reinecker changed that, things went uphill.

Interviewer: And “Derrick” became a cult, the series was broadcast in more than a hundred countries. Umberto Eco justified this with the “triumph of mediocrity”. And you?

Fritz Wepper: I have never fully understood it, this phenomenon. But I think it’s because of our human nature: We treated the suspect with the necessary respect, always allowed the presumption of innocence. There was no cross-examination, we did not shed light on the people with the desk lamp in the face. As investigators, we were polite and fair.

Interviewer: The women all over the world were very fond of the friendly investigative duo.

Fritz Wepper:  In the nineties I was traveling in Taiwan on the “Dream Ship”, passing a street kitchen where three women were making meatballs. Suddenly the face of one of these ladies lit up. “Hally? Hally,” she exclaimed enthusiastically. The meatballs were delicious.

Interviewer: Derrick and Harry seldom had a wife in front of the camera.

Fritz Wepper: Unfortunately. A private life simply could not be accommodated for 60 minutes – we had to focus on our cases.

Interviewer: In addition, Harry and Derrick led a quasi-marriage.

Fritz Wepper: Our women once realized that Horst and I are more often together than we are with them. Despite the age difference, we liked each other very much, exhausting shooting days we have survived with humor. Once, on Lake Starnberg, I jammed the murder weapon, such a trick kitchen knife, into my stomach. Horst turned around, startled – and the 800 Mark expensive theater knife flew over the railing in the lake. For hours the divers looked for it. We had a fun!

Interviewer: Detainees several times demanded in all seriousness the promotion of Derrick and Harry. To what extent has the series turned German reality on its head?

Fritz Wepper: Again and again men came up to me and said: “Because of you, I am now with the Criminal Investigation.” They wanted to be like us, too, so successful.

Interviewer: After 281 episodes was over with “Derrick”. Were you relieved?

Fritz Wepper: According to the script Derrick went, because he switched to the Eurocops. Even today I see Horst in front of me as he goes through the gate at the Hofgarten in Munich in the last scene, gets smaller and smaller – and finally disappears completely. The wet eyes, the melancholy of going apart: we did not have to play at the time. I often think of our farewell scene from “Derrick”, in 2008 I delivered the funeral speech at Horst’s funeral.

Interviewer: With 73 years you are still in front of the camera and let the nuns piss off: So no desire for pension?

Fritz Wepper: I would like to play the “Methuselah” – I will not be fooled.

Source: Spiegel Online.