Gert Fröbe

Gert Fröbe (1913 to 1988) was a German actor who appeared in more than one hundred films, most of them German productions. He gained fame in one of the first German films made after the Second World War, Berliner Ballade in 1948, whose character Otto Normalverbraucher became the German term for the average consumer. A role as a child killer in the 1958 film Es geschah am hellichten Tag brought him to the attention of the makers of the James Bond series, and he played the title villain in Goldfinger in 1964, the part for which English speaking audiences best remember him. He also appeared in international ensemble films including The Longest Day, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and in the 1980s he spoke in Mercedes Benz television commercials. Born in Oberplanitz, now part of Zwickau, he was a three time nominee for the German Film Award and received an honorary award in 1978.