Klaus Manchen, born on December 1, 1936 in Breslau (Wrocław), completed his training at the Staatliche Schauspielschule Berlin (today: Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch). In 1965 he was appointed to the ensemble of the Maxim Gorki Theatre, of which he was a permanent member until 2002. He also appeared on stage at the Hans Otto Theater Potsdam and the Schauspielhaus Zurich, among others.

From the end of the 1960s onwards, he has also been appearing in cinema and television productions, mostly in supporting roles. He made his screen debut with a small appearance as blind soldier in Konrad Wolf's war drama "Ich war neunzehn" ("I Was Nineteen", DD 1968). Among his most famous feature films are Egon Günther's love film "Der Dritte" ("The Third", DD 1972), in which he played the lover of a young woman; the family comedy "Ein Sonntagskind, das manchmal spinnt" (DD 1978), in which he portrays a family father; the DEFA western "Der Scout" ("The Scout", 1983), in which he played Sergeant Anderson, the opponent of the Indian chief embodied by Gojko Mitić; and Ralf Kirsten's "Wo andere schweigen" (DD 1984), a drama about the last days of the life of the socialist politician Clara Zetkin.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Manchen mainly appeared in TV productions. He had supporting roles in a number of TV movies and guest roles in series, including in numerous episodes of the popular crime series "Tatort" and "Polizeiruf 110". He did not appear on the big screen during that time, except for the drama "Der Blaue" ("The Blue One", 1994), about a former Stasi informer who is caught up in the West by his past, in which he impersonated a Stasi executive officer and "Aimée & Jaguar" (1998), in which he played a smaller part as a husband.

Only after leaving the ensemble of the Gorki Theatre in 2002 did Klaus Manchen concentrate primarily on working in front of the camera. He played a key role in Dominik Graf's "Der rote Kakadu" ("The Red Cockatoo", 2006) as an ex-factory owner in the GDR who criticizes the authorities and advises the young protagonists to flee to the West. He was also a member of the ensembles in Hans Steinbichler's "Winterreise" ("Winter Journey", 2006), the family drama "Die Liebe der Kinder" ("Wallace Line", 2009), Matti Geschonneck's Berlin neighbourhood story "Boxhagener Platz" ("Berlin, Boxhagener Platz", 2010) and the multiple award-winning neo-Nazi drama "Kriegerin" ("Combat Girls", 2011).

On television he was a regular in the series "Die Stein" from 2008 to 2011, as the father of a passionate Potsdam teacher. From 2011 though 2020 he has been playing the recurring role of Veit Bukow, crime boss and father of crime fighter Alexander Bukow (Charly Hübner), in the Rostock episodes of "Polizeiruf 110". In a rare leading role Klaus Manchen could be seen in the tragicomedy "Willkommen bei Habib" ("Habib Rhapsody", 2013). In the film he played a man who has finished with life but wants to call his daughter one last time and ask her to forgive him. At the end of 2013 he belonged to the ensemble of the Dramedy "Schwestern" ("Sisters") in which he appeared alongside Maria Schrader and Ursula Werner, about a secular family whose youngest daughter wants to enter a convent.

In the following years the performances of Manchen, who turned 80 in 2016, became rarer. He was seen in an episode of the TV series "Tannbach" (2015) and in a small supporting role as a fisherman in the Siegfried Lenz TV movie adaptation "Schweigeminute" ("A Minute's Silence", 2016) and continued to impersonate Veit Bukow in the Rostock "Polizeiruf 110" episodes until 2020. In an interview he gave after he left the show, he claimed that he would very likely not appear on screen again. Before that, however, Klaus Manchen had played the owner of a music bar in the ensemble film "Leif in Concert - Vol. 2", for which filming took place in 2017 already. It was released in German cinemas in summer 2020.

Klaus Manchen was first married to Christine Schorn, with his second wife Karola he lived in Brandenburg in Hoppegarten, where he died September 27, 2024, age 87.