Horst Buchholz

Once considered for the lead in the epic biopic "Lawrence of Arabia," Horst Buchholz is one of the few German-born actors who found success in both American and European cinema. Though chased from his homeland during World War II, he returned to Berlin and took to the stage by 1949, working in theater and radio in West Berlin before breaking into film in the 1950s. By 1956, he had won a German Film Award for his part in the romantic drama "Sky Without Stars," but it was his leading comedic turn as the roguish playboy in "Confessions of Felix Krull" that made him a star. Buchholz's charisma radiated from the screen, and by decade's end, he was working internationally and appearing in the British-produced thriller "Tiger Bay," which centered on a tomboy who bonds with a man she knows to be a killer. The following year, Buchholz became a part of American movie history as one of "The Magnificent Seven," the iconic Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai." In the wildly popular feature, Buchholz played the hotheaded young gun Chico, and he later went on to work in a variety of genres in the United States and abroad. While his stardom peaked in America in the 1960s when he co-starred with James Cagney in the Billy Wilder comedy "One, Two, Three," he went on to work steadily in TV and film until 2002.