Udo Kier, German Actor Famous for Working with Andy Warhol and Madonna, Dies at 81 Tommy McArdleNovember 24, 2025 at 9:35 PM 0 Kevin Winter/Getty Udo Kier on Jan. 5, 2024 Udo Kier, the German actor known for starring in more than 200 movie and television series over a more than 50year acting career, died on Sunday, Nov.
- - Udo Kier, German Actor Famous for Working with Andy Warhol and Madonna, Dies at 81
Tommy McArdleNovember 24, 2025 at 9:35 PM
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Kevin Winter/Getty
Udo Kier on Jan. 5, 2024 -
Udo Kier, the German actor known for starring in more than 200 movie and television series over a more than 50-year acting career, died on Sunday, Nov. 23
Kier was born in Germany during World War II and moved to England as a young man, where his acting career began in the late 1960s and early 1970s
Kier most recently starred in The Secret Agent, Brazil's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Oscars
Udo Kier, the German actor who racked up more than 200 onscreen roles in a career that spanned more than five decades, has died. He was 81.
Kier died on Sunday, Nov. 23, as his partner Delbert McBride confirmed to Variety. No cause of death has been announced yet. Kier's friend, photographer Michael Childers, wrote on Facebook on Nov. 23 that Kier died at a hospital in Palm Springs, Calif.
Kier was born in Cologne, Germany in 1944 during World War II. He was discovered as an actor while studying in London years later and made his onscreen debut in 1966 in a short film titled Road to Saint Tropez. According to Deadline and Variety, his breakout role was in 1970's Mark of the Devil, and he gained notoriety for starring in the title roles in the Andy Warhol-produced movies Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula in the early '70s.
In a 2002 interview with The Guardian, Kier noted that the hospital in Germany he was born in was bombed shortly after his birth; he and his mother were pulled out of the rubble in the aftermath.
"I'm a lucky man. I was lucky that, by nature, I looked good," he said at the time. "I was lucky to meet the right people and be in the right places but I've never forced things. I just wanted to get out of Germany. That was my intention — to get out of that misery I was born into."
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Udo Kier, undated
Kier starred in more than 200 movies and television series during his career and was known for working with experimental filmmakers. In the 1990s, he began appearing in more Hollywood films with movies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Armageddon and Wesley Snipes' Marvel cult favorite 1998 movie Blade.
He also worked with artists like Madonna on multiple music videos from her 1992 album Erotica and collaborated with Danish director Lars Von Trier multiple times over the years. Their 2000 movie Dancer in the Dark won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or award in 2000.
Most recently, Kier appeared in The Secret Agent alongside Wagner Moura; the movie is Brazil's official entry for the Best International Feature Film award at next year's Academy Awards. He also appeared in the movies By Design and Bad Painter this year.
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Udo Kier on Jan. 4, 2024
"I have few friends. I can count them on one hand. I go by myself to the cleaners and the supermarket and I live alone with my dogs," he told The Guardian of his life in 2002. As the outlet reported at the time, he began living in Los Angeles in the '90s.
About his passions at the time, he said, "I collect modern art and furniture. I love to work in the garden, because to plant little trees and see them grow is for me something fascinating, especially palm trees."
Kier did not appear to use social media frequently, but he did share one post on X (then known as Twitter) back in 2011. "film should not be streamed on netflix. envelop yourself in the darkness of the movie hall and submit to the artist's vision," he wrote at the time.
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Source: Entertainment
Published: November 24, 2025 at 11:45AM on Source: PRIME TIME
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