Dark-haired, blue-eyed Austrian leading man of 1950s and '60s romances and melodramas. He was trained as an aircraft technician and pilot at Messerschmitt, later serving as a paratrooper in World War II. He was severely wounded in North Africa and began his acting career as an extra in a 1943 war film. This prompted him to study drama in Berlin in 1945. He briefly acted on stage, before concentrating almost exclusively on film work.