Fritz Wepper died at the age of 82. The actor was more popular with TV audiences than any other star.
He has prepared for it. On the last way. For weeks, for months. Now he’s gone. Fritz Wepper, one of the most popular German actors, has died at the age of 82. He spent his last days in a hospice for the dead in Upper Bavaria. His wife Susanne Kellermann (49) and their daughter Filippa (12) visited him there every day. Kellermann confirmed “Bild” on March 25th: “Fritz fell asleep peacefully.”
According to a report by “Bild”, Wepper was recently mentally clear, but his physical condition was severely weakened. At his request, the therapeutic measures were discontinued and the administration of medication stopped.
Famous by “Derrick”
He was one of the most famous faces on German television and was present on the screens like no other. For decades he was Harry Klein, the assistant to the chief inspector (Horst Tappert), in “Derrick”. He played Mayor Wolfgang Wöller in the popular series “Um Himmels Willen” (ARD). And in the crime series “Murder in Best Company” (ARD) he played the main character, the psychiatrist Dr. Wendelin Winters.
It all began in post-war Munich. Fritz Wepper’s father, the lawyer Friedrich Karl Wepper, had been reported missing since the beginning of 1945. His mother had to support him and his brother Elmar, who was almost three years younger: “Our house was bombed. We could only heat with the stovepipe in the kitchen.”
During this time he also learned what hunger means. “You don’t forget real hunger… Real hunger hurts. We were sent to bed at five with a carrot to tide us over. That’s the greatest deprivation of my life,” he once said in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung “.
At the age of nine he was already involved in children’s radio on the Bayerischer Rundfunk, and as a high school student he made his stage debut at the age of eleven in a performance of “Peter Pan” at the Residenztheater.
After graduating from high school, Fritz Wepper, who never received any acting training, entered the film business – with great success: in 1959, in Bernhard Wicki’s award-winning anti-war film “Die Brücke”, he played the 16-year-old student Albert Mutz, who was a child soldier at a river crossing with six friends should defend. The film attracted international attention.
His biggest success
He had his greatest success in 1972 with the great American film musical “Cabaret” alongside global stars Liza Minnelli (78) and Michael York (81). Fritz Wepper impressively played the role of Fritz Wendel. The film won eight Oscars and Liza Minnelli remained a good friend throughout her life.
However, this cinematic highlight was not the start of an international career that his talent would have made possible. Fritz Wepper remained loyal to German film, or rather: German television. Since 1969 he has played Inspector Keller’s (Erik Ode) assistant Harry Klein in the ZDF series “The Commissioner”, who then moved to the series “Derrick” in 1974 as assistant to Chief Inspector Derrick.
For 24 years (or 281 episodes) he was Derrick’s friendly assistant, but Fritz Wepper managed to give this character cult status, culminating in the symptomatic sentence (which was never uttered): “Harry, get the car! “
Fritz Wepper became the “marathon man of the German television crime drama” (SZ), often with family members, for example in the ZDF series “Zwei Brüder” (1994-2001) with Elmar. Or in the ARD format “Murder in the Best Company”, in which his daughter Sophie (42) appeared in 17 episodes.
In contrast to Elmar, with whom he had an unusually close relationship, Fritz Wepper remained true to his stereotypes. “While his brother has increasingly made a name for himself as a character actor since Doris Dörrie’s film “Cherry Blossoms – Hanami”, Fritz Wepper, as a serial entertainment provider, no longer has to exert himself much in terms of acting. He is loved for the grounded type of average person, which he is for most people personally embodied,” wrote the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
His last major role was that of the busy mayor Wöller, who is constantly in conflict with the nuns at the local monastery. Fritz Wepper played this provincial politician in “For Heaven’s Sake” for almost 20 years, or more precisely 260 episodes.
Turbulent love life
This role gave the final touch to his popularity. The audience liked him, and a few scandals didn’t change that. Whether he was fined for cocaine possession or became a father again at the age of 70 (by his girlfriend, even though he was still married) – people loved their Fritz Wepper as one of their own.
His sometimes turbulent love life, some of which was carried out in public, didn’t change that. After an early liaison with the young Iris Berben (73), Fritz Wepper married Angela von Morgen (1942-2019) in 1979, and their daughter Sophie was born in 1981.
In 2009, the Wepper marriage hit the headlines when Fritz met camerawoman and director Susanne Kellermann (49), who was 33 years his junior. Two years later he had his daughter Filippa with her. Shortly after the birth, Wepper returned to his wife. After she died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2019 at the age of 76 after 40 years of marriage, he married Susanne Kellermann, the mother of his second daughter, in the same year.
Lots of health setbacks
The last ten years were marked by illnesses and other strokes of fate. In 2011 he narrowly escaped death from blood poisoning. He never really recovered from this sepsis. In 2016, he underwent a nine-hour operation to have a new heart valve inserted.
In February 2021 it became known that Wepper was suffering from skin cancer that had already spread metastases. A month later he was operated on for a tumor in his abdomen, whereupon his girlfriend Liza Minnelli sent a “recovery order” via “Bild”: “You are the greatest actor, dancer and star I had the chance to work with. I love you so much! Get well! That’s a command! Get well, my beautiful baby!”
Afterwards, a corona illness led to a long stay in the hospital. When brother Elmar died completely unexpectedly at the age of 79 on October 31, 2023, it seemed as if Fritz Wepper had lost all courage to live; the sudden death of his beloved brother had hit him so hard. Last December he had to be hospitalized again with blood poisoning. He never returned home to Lake Tegernsee from his stay in the hospital.
When it became clear to him at the beginning of March that there was no longer any chance of recovery, he was transferred to hospice. His twelve-year-old daughter lovingly decorated her terminally ill father’s room with pictures.
In 2021, his wife Susanne made a film about her husband: In “My Fritz,” her husband also talks about Buddhism, which he has been thinking about. He says sentences that sound like a legacy: “I want to be buried in my black kimono, which I wear to meditate. I want to wear a Buddhist bracelet with wooden beads on my wrist. Both symbols of letting go.”