Werner Herzog

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Herzog's connection to Kinski began in 1955, when the 13-year-old Herzog lived in the same boarding house as Kinski in Vienna. In *My Best Fiend*, Herzog described how Kinski once locked himself in the communal bathroom for 48 hours and broke everything in the room. Their working relationship was contentious; Herzog had threatened, on occasion, to murder Kinski. In one incident, Kinski was said to have been saved by his dog, which attacked Herzog as he crept up to supposedly burn down the actor's house. Herzog did pull a gun on Kinski, or at least threatened to do so, on the set of *Aguirre, the Wrath of God*, after the actor threatened to walk off the set. Late in the filming of *Fitzcarraldo* in Peru, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe offered to kill Kinski for Herzog, but the director declined. Herzog also claimed that Kinski had fabricated much of his 1988 autobiography, including claims of maternal sexual abuse, incest, and childhood poverty; according to Herzog, Kinski was actually raised in a financially stable upper middle class family.

Reader's Guide

Herzog's significance in film history is deeply tied to his five films with Kinski: *Aguirre, the Wrath of God* (1972), *Woyzeck* (1979), *Nosferatu the Vampyre* (1979), *Fitzcarraldo* (1982), and *Cobra Verde* (1987). The director's approach involved placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film. His legacy includes over a dozen books, two dozen operas directed, and acting roles in films and television series, often as a fictionalized version of himself.

Did You Know?

• Herzog first met Kinski in 1955 when Herzog was 13 years old and they lived in the same boarding house; Kinski once locked himself in the communal bathroom for 48 hours and broke everything inside.
• On the set of *Aguirre, the Wrath of God*, Herzog pulled a gun on Kinski (or threatened to do so) after the actor threatened to walk off the set.
• During the filming of *Fitzcarraldo* in Peru, the chief of the Machiguenga tribe offered to kill Kinski for Herzog, but the director declined.
• Herzog claimed that Kinski fabricated much of his 1988 autobiography, including claims of maternal sexual abuse, incest, and childhood poverty, asserting that Kinski was actually raised in a financially stable upper middle class family.
• Herzog chronicled his tumultuous relationship with Kinski in the documentary *My Best Fiend*, calling Kinski 'one of the greatest actors of the century, but also a monster and a great pestilence.'

A Career of Unmatched Range

Klaus Kinski accumulated more than 130 film roles across four decades, from his first small part in the 1948 German production *Morituri* through his final credits in 1988. He also tackled American war pictures such as *Decision Before Dawn* and *The Counterfeit Traitor*, and in 1977 he portrayed the RZ guerrilla Wilfried Böse in *Operation Thunderbolt*, a dramatization of the Entebbe raid. Beyond these, he moved fluidly between horror, drama, and exploitation fare, performing in multiple languages and embodying characters of different nationalities. This extraordinary breadth, combined with a raw physical intensity that set him apart from his peers, made Kinski one of the most recognizable character presences in postwar European cinema.

The Herzog Crucible

The most defining chapter of Kinski's professional life was his five-film collaboration with Werner Herzog, stretching from *Aguirre, the Wrath of God* in 1972 to *Cobra Verde* in 1987. The two had first crossed paths in 1955, when a thirteen-year-old Herzog shared a boarding house in Vienna with the already-established actor; Herzog later recalled Kinski locking himself in the communal bathroom for two days and destroying everything inside. Their working relationship was legendary for its volatility: Kinski was prone to violent and emotional outbursts directed at directors and castmates, a pattern compounded by a documented history of mental illness. Herzog himself summed up the paradox in a single sentence, calling Kinski one of the greatest actors of the century but also a monster and a great pestilence. After Kinski's death in 1991, Herzog channeled their decades of mutual obsession into the documentary *My Best Fiend*, a film that functions as both tribute and reckoning, preserving the chaos of their partnership for posterity.

Beyond the Screen: Voice, Cult, and Controversy

Kinski's influence extended well past the silver screen. He reinvented himself as a monologist and spoken-word performer, touring Austria, Germany, and Switzerland with recitations of François Villon, William Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde, and eventually releasing more than twenty spoken-word albums. His eccentric creative impulses also produced a one-man stage show dramatizing the life of Jesus Christ and a self-directed, self-starring biopic of the violinist Niccolò Paganini. After his death in November 1991, Kinski's public image became further complicated by posthumous accusations that he had physically and sexually abused his daughters, Pola and Nastassja. Yet none of this diminished the cult following that had grown around his notoriety and prolific output; he became a popular icon whose persona—equal parts genius and menace—continues to fascinate. Herzog's *My Best Fiend* and the sheer volume of his work ensure that Kinski remains a figure who defies simple categorization, simultaneously revered and reviled in equal measure.

A Life Forged in Turmoil

Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski was born in October 1926 in Zoppot, the Free City of Danzig, now Sopot, Poland, to an opera singer who became a pharmacist and a nurse whose father was a local pastor. Financial hardship during the Great Depression forced the family to relocate to Berlin's Schöneberg district in 1931. At seventeen, Kinski was conscripted into the Wehrmacht's Fallschirmjäger unit; he saw his first combat in the occupied Netherlands in winter 1944 and was captured by British forces on his second day. In his 1988 autobiography he described a dramatic desertion attempt, a death sentence at court-martial, and a gunshot wound to the arm during his escape—claims Herzog later disputed, arguing that Kinski had fabricated much of the narrative, including allegations of maternal abuse and childhood poverty. After the war, Kinski returned to Berlin only to learn that his father had died during the conflict and his mother had been killed in an Allied bombing of the city.