Actor
TV star in constant high – Heino Ferch turns 60
Heino Ferch turns 60. Photo
© Sven Hoppe/dpa
His career went uphill quickly. Heino Ferch is one of the most popular and busiest actors from Germany. The list of his film successes is long. He is now 60 years old.
However, Ferch will soon be back on screen, for example as a guest star on September 3rd in the ARD “Tatort” from Ludwigshafen. In the thriller, which revolves around the Nibelungen treasure, he plays a whimsical museum director. It is often the somewhat eccentric characters with reduced facial expressions that Ferch portrays.
Even as a student, when he was a gymnast, Ferch wanted to be an actor. In 1978 he was on stage with an artistic role in the musical “Can Can” – and one appearance quickly followed the other: Ferch played in numerous provincial theater productions until he graduated from high school. He completed his acting training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1987. In the same year he got a three-year engagement at the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin. First TV roles soon followed.
From “hibernators” to the “Baader Meinhof complex”
Heino Ferch celebrated his breakthrough in 1997 with the thriller “Winterleeper” by director Tom Tykwer. From then on, success followed success – both in the cinema and on TV: to name a few are “Comedian Harmonists”, “Der Tunnel”, “Das Wunder von Lengede”, “Hanni und Nanni”, “München 72”, die “Allmen” series as well as the feature films “Der Untergang” and “Der Baader Meinhof Complex”, each nominated for an Oscar.
For the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” Ferch was “one of the favorite heroes of the German television audience” in 2014. He has already received several awards. In 2004 he received the “Adolf Grimme Prize” and in 2013 he was nominated for the International Emmy Award for his role in the ZDF feature film series “Spuren des Bösen”. He was last awarded the “Golden Camera” in 2022 as best actor. In 2023 there was the “Golden Nymph Award” at the 62nd Festival de Télévision Monte Carlo.
From time to time Ferch is on red carpets or as a guest on TV shows like “Wetten, dass…?” to see. The father of four tries to keep his private life out of the headlines. In 2021 he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine” that he saw no need to stand out on social media: “I still have the classic view that an actor gives a lot of himself in his roles. I don’t have to keep posting what I just bought or what city I’m walking through.”
It is known: Ferch is passionate about playing polo. In 2016 he became German champion in this sport. In 2005, the actor married the Bavarian eventing rider and polo athlete Marie-Jeanette Steinle – first on a windjammer in Bremerhaven and later in a church in a baroque monastery church on Lake Ammer.