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Source: 58th Berlin International Film Festival (Catalogue)
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Elmar Wepper
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Elmar Wepper, born April 16, 1944, in Augsburg, is – just like his brother Fritz who is three years older – one of the most famous and popular actors of German television, although Wepper's TV success often overshadows his occasional yet sometimes ambitious movie parts. Elmar Wepper started his acting career already at an early age: At the age of 13 he played a supporting role alongside his brother Fritz in the Hans Moser comedy "Eine verrückte Familie". Wepper then worked as a dubbing voice and for radio plays, played at the theatre and was occasionally seen on TV.
After finishing school, Elmar Wepper studied theatre studies and German philology and already prepared to write his doctoral dissertation about the Viennese folk theatre when Michael Verhoeven offered him the leading role in his film "Ein unheimlich starker Abgang" in 1973. Thus, finally Wepper's film and TV career took off. He made his breakthrough already one year later when he succeeded his brother Fritz in the TV crime series "Der Kommissar" (1974-1976) alongside Erik Ode.
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With his next big role, Wepper sticked to the crime genre and portrayed the popular detective Helmut Heinl in the TV crime series "Polizeiinspektion 1" (1976-1988). From 1983 to 1985, Wepper was also seen in the successful TV series "Unsere schönsten Jahre". At the beginning of the 1990s, Wepper's popularity peaked for the first time when he and Uschi Glas won a "Bambi" as the "best German TV couple" in the TV series "Zwei Münchner in Hamburg" (1988-1992).
Besides numerous TV series like "Unsere Schule ist die Beste" (1994-1995), or "Zwei Brüder" (1994-2001, together with Fritz Wepper), Elmar Wepper was also seen in a large number of TV movies ranging from light entertainment like "Das Traumschiff" (2006) to ambitious TV movies such as Dominik Graf's highly praised thriller "Bittere Unschuld" (1999), or Markus Imboden's crime film "Ein Dorf sucht einen Mörder" (2001).
Wepper appears only occasionally on the movie screen although he starred in several striking parts, for instance as a strict judge alongside Moritz Bleibtreu in "Lammbock". Furthermore, he acted as the narrator in Helmut Dietls "Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe" ("About the Looking for and the Finding of Love", 2005). Movie goers are familiar with his voice, anyway: Since 1979, Wepper is the German dubbing voice of Mel Gibson and has lent his voice to other foreign movie stars including Bruce Lee, Tim Allen, Tim Roth, and several others.
In 2007, Wepper worked with director Doris Dörrie for the second time after "Der Fischer und seine Frau" ("The Fisherman and His Wife – Why Women Never Get Enough", 2005). In "Kirschblüten – Hanami" ("Cherry Blossoms – Hanami") that premieres at the 2008 Berlinale, Wepper played a cancer patient, who travels to Japan to cope with his wife's death, a performance that won him the Bavarian film award.
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