The Most Insane Actor Ever - Klaus Kinski

one of the greatest actors of the century but also a monster and a great pestilence these are words used by German director Werner Herzog to describe Klaus Kinski a German actor he frequently collaborated with and somewhat of a friend an actor so controversial with his emotional and violent outbursts on film Productions that even a whiff of his Antics in our current culture would have had him canceled and without a career instantly and this is by no means a jab at cancel culture as the stories of Klaus Kinski were about to tell are truly despicable a person so fueled by rage throughout his career that on separate occasions an indigenous tribe offered to kill him for Herzog a producer contemplated having him killed for insurance money and even Herzog himself threatened to kill him when Kinski went too far and after his death in 1991 many more Revelations and accusations came to light about past productions and relationships with his daughters but who is Klaus Kinski this is actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer his career ran from 1948 to 1989 appearing in over 130 films most notable of these were his five collaborations with Werner Herzog and his small role in for a few dollars more the second film in the man with no name Trilogy aside from film he's also done a lot of theater plays released over 20 spoken word albums where he recites poetry and did a one-man show theater tour titled Jesus Christ savior where he monologues as Jesus more on this later though many of his Antics were known publicly at the time and gave him a cult favorite status that helped promote some of his later work Kinski was born in Poland to polish German parents before they all moved to Berlin in 1931. Kinski described his childhood as extremely difficult with poverty-like conditions during the Great Depression in 1943 at the age of 17 he was conscripted to the German Armed Forces during World War II as part of a paratrooper unit but didn't see any action until the winter of 1944. stationed in German occupied Netherlands Kinski was captured by the British Army on the second day of combat but in one of his Memoirs he claimed that he deserted the German Army was recaptured by German troops and sentenced to death before escaping and hiding in the woods before being shot and captured by the British army as a British prisoner of war he acted in shows put on by fellow prisoners officially beginning his acting career but a lot of this wasn't true according to Werner Herzog who mentioned this in his 1999 documentary my best fiend a documentary about Klaus Kinski and their collaborations which will be referred to a lot in this video Herzog claimed that Kinski fabricated a lot of his 1988 autobiography and that Kinski was actually raised in a financially stable upper middle class family as his mom was a nurse and dad was a pharmacist and thank goodness his Memoirs weren't entirely true as they were quite sexual with claims of maternal sexual abuse and incest part of wise Memoir was so full of lies was because he believed that no one would read it if it wasn't packed with controversy that scum only want to hear about the dirt he told this to Herzog when questioned about his constant Trash Talk towards him in the Memoir that no one would read it if he wrote that they got along which will soon C would have also been a lie the other reason for his fictitious Memoirs could have stemmed from his mental illness that is also a valid reason for his ridiculous outbursts on film sets in 1950 kinsky stalked and eventually tried to strangle his theatrical sponsor which put him in a psychiatric hospital for three days originally thought to be schizophrenic Kinski was then diagnosed with psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder this was a difficult time for Kinski as he struggled to secure film roles and even attempted suicide twice in 1955. he had much better luck in the 60s and 70s starring in many European B movies or what we now call straight to DVD films his most notable roles in the 60s were small parts in Dr zivago and for a few dollars more where for the latter he took part in after moving to Italy in the late 60s in Italy he appeared in many Spaghetti Westerns earning quite a bit from them even though his roles were pretty minor eventually he was persuaded to come back to Germany in 1971 to perform the Jesus Christ savior show in theaters it was to be a 100 performance worldwide tour with much of the anticipation for Kinski coming from the reputation he cemented through a spoken word albums the show would have Kinski recite his 30-page Jesus Christ savior text that is a modern retelling of the gospels where he recites them as if he himself was Jesus it was kinski's interpretation of the New Testament but when performing in West Berlin on November 20th 1971 things got out of hand quickly the crowd was hostile partially due to thinking that Kinski was proclaiming himself as a new Messiah with an audience of three thousand to five thousand people Kinski spent much of his time ranting and cursing at the crowd Jesus isn't named Kinski comedian caveatour champagne guzzler for 10 marks she ought to give us more were just some of the insults from the audience Kinski quickly dropped his Jesus act as he became an enemy of the theater Hall after numerous violent interruptions dirty so Vermin shut your traps those of you who don't belong to this rabble throw the others out were just some of his rebuttals he even had people come on stage and criticize as he continued antagonizing the crowd the show ended with chance of Kinski is a racist followed by chaos that needed police intervention to stop the event Kinski ran backstage like he did many times during the show but this time breaking down in tears eventually he continued to monologue for a small group on the side of the stage this is one of the only times I sympathize with Kinski a misunderstood performance that would even make headlines in the New York Times as berliners enraged by actors portrayal of Jesus but this sympathy wouldn't last long as is Jesus Christ savior tour will be cut short and he'd move on to his first Werner Herzog collaboration which is a monster of a Film Production story itself Warner Herzog and Klaus Kinski made five films together aguide the wrath of God Nosferatu the vampire wozak fitzgeraldo and Cobra Verde it's during the making of these films where the craziest Kinski stories came from because of how well they were documented in herzog's my best fiend documentary the relationship dates all the way back to when Herzog was 14 and Kinski was either 29 9 or 30. herzog's family was living in one room of a boarding house that Kinski also lived in they were together in that house for three months apparently Kinski filled his room with leaves up to his knees and had constant Rampages when the owner of the house ironed his shirts wrong he went on one of these Rampages ripping doors off hinges and destroying Furniture even though he was being fed there for free one memory Herzog remembers vividly was when during one of these tantrums Kinski locked himself in the bathroom for two days and destroyed all the porcelain into pieces so small that Herzog claims you can sift through them with a tennis racket another of herzog's memories was when a Critic who saw Kinski in a small role of a play was over for dinner the critic praised the actor for his performance saying that he was outstanding and extraordinary so Kinski thanked him for those kind words is what he would have done if he was normal instead he threw two potatoes and whatever Cutlery he had at the critic and exclaimed I was not excellent I was not extraordinary I was Monumental I was epocal with stories like these it makes you wonder what went through herzog's head to want to work with Kinski at all but it all comes down to Talent something that we can't deny Kinski had when Herzog was 15 he saw Kinski in the war film children mothers and a general and was so impressed by the way Kinski acts in a scene where his character wakes up this scene stuck with him and was the Catalyst for casting Kinski in the first place we'd then go on to get five crazy film Productions with the two of them some more Infamous than others everyone who worked on these Productions hated Kinski and would almost form a mutiny whenever they heard Kinski was on board for another it would get to the point where actors took a lot of pleasure in harming Kinski whenever it was called for in a scene but okay enough pre-tax to these Productions we begin with the first film agire The Wrath of God released in 1972. agire the wrath of God was an epic historical drama with Kinski in the lead role he played a Spanish soldier in the 16th century who led a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in search of El Dorado a legendary City of Gold filming took place in the Peruvian rainforest in Machu Picchu and on the Amazon River it would be a difficult five weeks of filming for the cast in crew and it wasn't because of the environment but because of Kinski Kinski calling Herzog to accept the role after receiving the screenplay was the first time the two of them had talked since living together and this call consisted of over an hour of inarticulate screaming before Herzog even realized who it was Kinski just came off the Jesus Christ savior tour and was acting like Jesus during filming answering as a misunderstood Jesus this misunderstood Jesus quickly turned into a field by rage Jesus when things didn't go his way right from the opening scene Kinski already had a problem with not being the center of attention as Herzog had in mind a very distant shot of them walking into the intro the two of them also argued about how aguide kinski's character should be portrayed with Kinski wanting him to be a wild ranting madman whereas Herzog wanted him to be more quiet and menacing Herzog ended up getting his way by intentionally infuriating Kinski before each shot and then waiting for the anger to burn itself out before rolling the camera but infuriating Kinski ended up being a simple task for Herzog as Kinski was always infuriated there were times when kinsky forgot his lines and looked around for a victim to blame like a cameraman smiling so he could start a fit these rants sometimes went on for hours often yelling inches away from people's faces usually her dogs one time extras found food near the set which infuriated Kinski for some reason so he started flailing his sword around at them even hitting one of the actors on his helmet extremely hard even with the helmet he suffered a lot of bleeding and would have easily died if he had not been wearing one in the my best fiend documentary Herzog talked with this actor about how aggressive and cold-blooded Kinski was and the actor showed that he still had a scar from that hit another time some extras and others were relaxing at night having drinks in a hut playing cards about 45 of them all cramped in it Kinski became furious with the relaxing and drinking so he took a gun and shot at the hut three times luckily among all the chaos only a fingertip of an extra was shot off it could have easily been much worse the climax of the film's production occurred when a technician made Kinski mad and Herzog refused to fire him when Kinski demanded it enraged Kinski threatened to leave production packing all of his things in a speedboat and was ready to go knowing kinski's reputation with breaking contracts Herzog took these threats seriously as a lot of filming was still left Herzog told Kinski you can't do this the movie is more important than our personal emotions even more important than our persons and this can't be permitted this simply will not be but Kinski persisted on leaving Herzog replied with if you leave set now you will reach the bend the next Bend of the river and I will shoot you we'll have eight bullets through your head and the last one is going to be for me although Herzog didn't have a gun on him Kinski took these threats seriously and began shouting for police calling Herzog a lunatic but there was no police station within 300 miles this encounter made Kinski very disciplined for the remaining days of the shoot the film went on to have poor box office numbers in Germany but became a cult favorite in Mexico Venezuela and Algiers before getting theatrical releases in other European countries and a US release later that decade the US and UK loved the film praising herzog's vision and kinsky's acting and it currently sits at a 96 percent on on Rotten Tomatoes the next two Herzog Kinski collaborations wouldn't be as eventful as the first but that's not to say they went smoothly they included his usual Tantrums but nothing went to the extreme Nosferatu the vampire and wuzak both released in 1979. the former had Kinski played Count Dracula as the lead and the latter also had Kinski in the lead role as Franz woyzek a soldier who took a job taking part in medical experiments to earn some extra money one of these experiments had wysek eat nothing but peas for his diet and he soon goes insane because of it this was based on a stage play and not something that Herzog came up with himself for Nosferatu the vampire Kinski often argued on set but surprisingly got along with Reiko crook the Japanese makeup artist in charge of applying the Dracula makeup these four hour long makeup sessions went smoothly with no classic Kinski outbursts the film released to great reviews with the praise going to both Herzog and Kinski and currently sits at a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes just five days after finishing the work on Nosferatu the vampire filming began on wuzak the crew is still exhausted from the previous production but luckily it doesn't seem like Kinski caused too many problems at least nothing worthy of reporting in fact Eva matz the actress playing opposite of Kinski in the film had some good words to say about him she claimed that there was a calm warmer side to Kinski that he was always very professional and good towards her mats also said that on the last day of filming when she started to cry that it was all over Kinski hugged her saying that he knew how she felt Herzog also admitted that Kinski had a human warmth to him but one that can quickly turn into an Abrupt rage woyzek also released to great reviews sitting at 85 percent right now but it was Eva Matt who received most of the praise for her role in this film she won the best supporting actress award at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival after these two films Kinski had the opportunity to play the lead villain role in Raiders of the Lost Ark he refused the role though apparently telling Steven Spielberg this script is a yawn-making boring pile of and moronically shitty in 1982 the next Herzog Kinski collaboration Fitz carlda released and its production would be as insane as a gires filming took place mostly in Peru confirming that you don't just need Herzog and Kinski for it to be a controversial production but that it also needs to be in South America the entire production was problematic even earning its own documentary the very well received burden of Dreams indigenous extras were used for this film with several of the ones who were hired as laborers getting injured or even dying two people took arrows to the throat and stomach when a group of Scavenging tribes people launched a hit and run raid on the film Productions Camp luckily they survived there were also two small plane crashes that were carrying people to the film set resulting in five critical injuries with one being paralyzed and many injuries occurred when working with a ship they used for filming which was vital to the film's plot but with all these issues they've already had to deal with Kinski added his own on top of them he continued his hour-long Tantrums in this production but they started to really show how much of an egomaniac he was how much he needed to be the center of attention anytime there was a serious accident which there were a ton of for this film Kinski would see that he was no longer important at that time and throw a fit one time a lumber man was bitten by an extremely venomous snake while cutting a tree Barefoot which is a fairly rare occurrence it would only take a few minutes for cardiac arrest to occur and the camp with serum was 20 minutes away so after only a few seconds of thinking he took the saw and cut off his foot back at Camp all the attention was on treating the lumber man which irritated Kinski the same thing happened with the plane crash that was bringing six people to the production Kinski saw that people lost interest in him for that moment and he threw a fit because his coffee was only lukewarm that morning he was more short-tempered than usual arguing constantly with Herzog and the crew we even have some of these tantrums well documented in my best fiend where we see Kinski raging at the production manager over trivial things like the quality of food although we only see a few minutes of this in the documentary it went on for much longer we'll include a link to the tantrum in the description these tantrums reached a boiling point with Herzog to which Herzog planned to set kinski's cabin on fire while he was asleep in it he said he would have done it but kinski's dog outside his Hut barked whenever Herzog approached you might think that this was a bit extreme but they had a unique relationship and the feelings were pretty Mutual at the cans premiere of my best fiend Herzog said we had a great love a great Bond but both of us planned to take each other out but some people on the set of fitzgeraldo were even more serious about taking Kinski out the indigenous actors were very disturbed by kinsky's bizarre outbursts they were afraid of him as they are often gentle with each other even when conflicted but Kinski was very physical and vulgar it came to the point where the chief of the indigenous people offered to kill Kinski for Herzog and he was dead serious this happened towards the end of shooting to which Herzog replied no I still need him for shooting leave him to me her talk explored this anger the indigenous had for Kinski for one of the scenes where the natives were around Kinski while he's eating and you can see the true anger and tension on the extras faces after filming was wrapped up the chief told Herzog that the extras were afraid but not of kinski's shouting and instead herzog's silenced during all of it fitzgeraldo released to good reviews with a 77 on Rotten Tomatoes today and his beloved by many before moving on to the next film we wanted to list three more facts about this production one Kinski wasn't even originally supposed to be in this film Jason Robards was already cast as the lead but he fell ill then Jack Nicholson was considered before finally landing on Kinski the crew were definitely not too pleased to be working with him again especially since 40 of filming with Robards was complete so they'd have to start from scratch two Kinski always claimed to be a nature man to be one with nature he really hyped up how fascinating the Landscapes were where they were filming but he barely set foot in the jungle always staying in Camp unless needing to film a scene but one time he went 100 feet into the jungle on his own time and you bet he brought along a photographer to keep up his nature man Persona and three during one of kinski's rages at Herzog Herzog went back to his Hut in the middle of the Tantrum grabbed the chocolate he was hiding that people on his production would have fought for and aided inches away from kinsky's face Kinski was so confused that his rage fizzled out before the final Herzog Kinski collaboration Kinski played the lead role in a horror film titled crawl space released in 1986. the production was so full of kinsky's usual Antics that director David shmulder released a short film in 1999 where he described all the issues he had with Kinski it's definitely worth checking out sitting at just under nine minutes and schmuller recounts the filming in a very entertaining way link is in the description crawl space's lead role was written for Kinski with no one else in mind but schmuller had no idea about kinski's reputation for being difficult to work with before filming even started Kinski already threw a fit over the Wardrobe they gave him so he went out and bought his own clothes of course charging it to the film and then keeping them afterwards what a guy for the entire shoot Kinski clashed with other actors and crew many of these clashes are shown in the short film by day 3 of shooting Kinski started six fist fights with crew members and caused significant delays to the schedule shmulder and the producers agreed that Kinski had to go if they wanted to finish the film but the Distribution Company paying for the film insisted that he needed to stay so they continued filming on day 4 when schmuller came to the set the film's Italian producer had a smile on his face because he figured out how to solve their problem with Kinski that they would kill Kinski for the insurance money and he was completely serious about it schmuller was worried so he called the film's American producer with this info to which the producer replied with bummer not actually committing to the plan on day 5 Kinski found out that they were gonna fire him and he declared war on the director but schmuller was determined to outlast Kinski since directors quitting on him was fairly common soon after Kinski threw a tantrum screaming about director's yelling action when starting a scene action so they eventually agreed on saying Klaus instead a day and a half later the same tantrum happened but this time he was screaming Klaus Klaus Klaus all my life directors have called Klaus but something had to be called by the director to start filming the scene to which Kinski replied say nothing and he'll start when he's ready three to four times a day now the crew started whispering to schmolder's ear please kill Mr Kinski everyone reached their Breaking Point with him but they still had to endure close to the end of filming schmuller said cut to finish filming a scene and the same screaming occurred cut cut cut I made over 200 movies and directors are always yelling cut when asked what to say instead Kinski responded with don't say anything I'll stop when I'm finished on top of all of these requests Kinski also refused to say any lines he didn't like to the point where scenes didn't make sense anymore crawl space released very negative reviews with 17 on Rotten Tomatoes today in a 2011 interview schmuller stood by his words in the short film saying that he didn't exaggerate anything it was all well documented and that Kinski is responsible for his own myth making but it really makes you wonder how many more undocumented controversial kinsky moments there were when making other films whose production stories weren't as public a year later in 1987 the final Herzog Kinski collaboration would release Cobra Verde where Kinski plays a slave trader who travels to West Africa filming was done in Brazil Colombia and Ghana and it was this film where their conflicted relationship peaked this film's production problems weren't documented as well as the other but kinsky's wrath was so unbearable that Herzog vowed to never work with him again the outbursts were so frequent and violent giving us the iconic image of Kinski clutching herzog's throat on set the film's original cinematographer Thomas March received so much verbal abuse from Kinski that he walked out on the project but the film released to great reviews and currently has an 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes in 1989 Klaus Kinski would release his first and only self-directed film Paganini in which he also had the lead role as the 19th century devil violinist Kinski repeatedly asked Herzog to direct the film but Herzog refused believing the script was unfilmable although I'm pretty sure he was just done working with Kinski ever again actress Tosca dequino had a miserable experience when making the film about the production she said I suffered the harassment of kinski's very difficult nature going back I would not make this film because I suffered a lot he was a very violent man I had a complicated relationship he was bossy I had bruises the film released to mixed reviews and would be kinsky's final film of his career on November 23 1991 Kinski died of a sudden heart attack at his home in California at the age of 65. Kinski was a cult favorite due to his spoken word albums and some of his on-set Antics that were public at the time but it wouldn't be until 1999 when people really saw how insane Kinski was on set with the release of my best fiend and please kill Mr Kinski for some these new documented film Productions made Kinski even more of a cult favorite but the glorifying of Kinski after his death was too much for some to handle of kinski's three children only his son Nikolai attended his funeral both his daughters Pola and Nastasia were absent and it wouldn't be until 20 years after his death in 2013 where some new Revelations came out that would explain why polokinski klaus's first daughter and also an actress released an autobiography titled from a child's mouth revealing that her father's sexually abused her from ages 5 to 19. she couldn't deal with the praise and worship her father was getting when no one knew the truth behind what kind of person he was Nastasia supported polis claims calling her brave and saying my sister is a heroine because she has freed her heart her soul and also her future from the weight of the secret Nastasia said that her father never sexually abused her but that when she was four to five years old Kinski would Embrace her in a sexual manner she described her father as an unpredictable Tyrant and she always feared him Klaus Kinski as an actor is a touchy subject with everything that was revealed following death there's no denying that he's an extraordinary actor but also that he's a cynical short-tempered egomaniac with just the onset issues it might be okay to look past them but the sexual abuse allegations helped completely tarnish his legacy but this is where it becomes difficult and we're separating the artist from the art comes in just like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski you can still enjoy their work without respecting them and by boycotting kinsky's filmography completely you'd be robbing yourself of a few astounding films especially the Werner Herzog films who isn't a Satan himself although relative to Kinski he was maybe we'll make a video on him in the future and also keep in mind that there were hundreds of people putting in a lot of time and a lot of effort to make these movies not just the two of them but we want to hear what do you think about this subject comment down below so that's everything thanks for watching we really hope you enjoyed this lengthier video of ours and trust me there really was no way to shorten this video because of how crazy the career of Klaus Kinski was also we've officially launched a patreon for those who want to support us further and gain access to some cool perks we'll be very active on there and have some awesome ideas for it in the future but the YouTube channel will always be your top priority and we have a ton of great videos planned so until next time have a good one [Music]

Channel: FilmStack

Views: 786,209

Keywords: Klaus kinski, Werner herzog, Clint Eastwood, Aguirre the wrath of god, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde, Jesus Christ Savior, Crawlspace, German Actor, Doctor Zhivago, Pola Kinski, Indigenous Actors, Paganini, Burden of Dreams, most insane actor, notorious actor, controversial actor, angry German actor, bad on-set behaviour, infamous productions, infamous actor, craziest actor

Id: j1WulO9Bri0

Length: 23min 39sec (1419 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023