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Fritz Wepper, the German actor who portrayed the German Jew Fritz Wendel in Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical masterpiece Cabaret and starred in his home country on the TV series Derrick and For Heaven’s Sake, has died. He was 82.

Wepper died Monday in a Munich hospice after a long illness that followed the life-threatening sepsis he suffered last year, his family announced.

An actor since childhood, Wepper landed the biggest international role of his career in Cabaret (1972), where he appeared alongside Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem and Joel Grey. As Wendel, he passed as a Protestant and fell in love with wealthy Jewish heiress Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson).

After the film’s success — it raked in eight Oscars in 1973 — Wepper turned down Hollywood offers and instead took a sidekick role as Harry Klein on the new German crime series Derrick, playing alongside Horst Tappert‘s titular homicide detective, a...

Severin Films make their return to the UK home video market with the Blu-ray release of two Jess Franco films in their library, She Killed in Ecstasy and Vampyros Lesbos – erotically charged Euro-horrors starring Franco fave Soledad Miranda which mark the pinnacle of Franco’s career. The former, a revenge thriller, is considered the best of the 200-odd films the Spanish auteur has made, whilst the latter is a crowd-pleasing slice of sleaze (who doesn’t love lesbian vampires) that is also an oddly-faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula.

She Killed In Ecstasy

Stars: Soledad Miranda, Fred Williams, Paul Muller, Howard Vernon, Ewa Strömberg, Horst Tappert | Written and Directed by Jess Franco

She Killed In Ecstasy tells the story of Mrs. Johnson (Miranda), the widow of a young doctor (Williams) who kills himself after a medical committee terminates his research into human embryos, considering it too inhumane.

Berlin — Reports that the late German actor Horst Tappert, best known for his longtime role as dapper TV sleuth Stefan Derrick, served in a feared Nazi SS unit prompted at least one European broadcaster to announce Saturday that it would drop the show's reruns from its schedule.

Dutch TV station Max pulled reruns of the show, which was produced from 1974 to 1998, after daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published documents Friday showing the actor had been in the SS during World War II.

"Derrick" was one of the most widely syndicated German TV shows, broadcast in over 100 countries including China, Australia, France and Norway.

"We are not going to honor an actor like this who has lied about his past," Dutch public broadcaster Nos quoted Max chairman Jan Slagter as saying.

Tappert had spoken of his wartime service as a medic in an interview 10 years before his death in 2008. But he didn't...

German actor Horst Tappert has died, aged 85.

The Derrick actor passed away on Saturday in Munich, after a long battle from a diabetes ailment, his wife Ursula said.

Tappert was most famous for starring in the television detective series, which was aired in 108 countries from 1974 until 1998 - when Tappert reached his self-imposed age limit of 75 for being a TV actor.

His wife tells Bunte magazine, "It's sad but he had an exciting life. My husband was well and in high spirits until recently. But in the last few days his condition visibly worsened."

Tappert, whose son died in 2001 from organ failure, is survived by his wife, as well as another son and a daughter.

Berlin -- Horst Tappert was one of the biggest stars in show business, and no one in Hollywood ever knew his name.

But the rest of the world knew Tappert, a German TV actor who died Saturday at 85. They knew him as the gray, serious Munich police detective "Derrick" in the hit German series that ran almost 300 episodes from 1983-98. "Derrick" sold to 104 countries, still a record for a German show.

Its success seemed to defy explanation. "Derrick" was a cop show without violence, without sex and without much action. Tappert never drew his gun. He rarely raised his voice. The show's tagline was his prosaic order to his junior partner: "Fetch the car, Harry."

Cynics said "Derrick" sold so well, especially to conservative countries, because it was so bland. Even the strictest censor couldn't be offended by the show's tame approach and Tappert's stern morality.

But Tappert's fans --...