Willy Semmelrogge

A native of Berlin, the late actor Willy Semmelrogge was a veteran of German television, but also appeared in a number of films over the course of his relatively long career. Initially featured as a supporting player in a number of late-1950s made-for-TV movies, including the dramas "Schmutzige Hände" and "Konto ausgeglichen," Semmelrogge was largely relegated to unnamed characters until the 1960s, when he began win slightly bigger roles, notably a part in the '64 Albert Einstein television biopic "Die Physiker." During the mid-1960s, he portrayed Inspektor Stegemann on the short-lived series "Der Nachtkurier meldet. ." and also turned up in the pulpy thriller "Mordnacht in Manhattan." Semmelrogge continued his steady career as a working actor into the 1970s, and eventually got a break when he was cast as Willy Kreutzer on the perennially popular cop show "Tatort," a part that he reprised into the next decade. During this era, he also appeared in two feature films by the lauded director Werner Herzog, "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" and "Woyzeck," both tense tales of disturbed individuals. Semmelrogge remained quite active in the early 1980s, guest starring on episodes of the crime series "Derrick" and "Der Alte" before his untimely death in 1984.