Dietmar Bär

A face familiar to all television-viewing Germans is the portly, gruff visage of character actor Dietmar Bär. Born in the city of Dortmund in western Germany, Bar studied dramatics at Schauspielschule Bochum and won his first film role in director Doris Dörrie's acclaimed 1985 comedy "Men." The second half of the 1980s saw Bär concentrating on stage work, touring with the National Theatre of Tuebingen. His television career took off in the early 1990s, with small roles in series such as "Blank, Meier, Jensen" and TV movies like "Leo und Charlotte." His breakout role came in 1990 when he began playing Mike Döpper in the popular crime series "Kommissar Klefisch." On the heels of this success, Bär won a role in the dramatic series " Ärzte" and shot to fame in 1997 when he began portraying Hauptkommissar Freddy Schenk in the long-running German crime series "Tatort." In 2006, Bär voiced the character of Kleiner Bear in the animated children's film "Oh, wie schön ist Panama" and also began lending his distinctive tones to German-language audio books by such authors as Stieg Larsson and the Brothers Grimm. In his private life, Bär has worked tirelessly to promote fair trade and eliminate poverty in the Phillippines. In 2009, he quietly married his longtime girlfriend, physiotherapist Maren Geissler.