Prolific actor Udo Kier, of ‘My Own Private Idaho,’ ‘Swan Song,’ dies at 81

(NEXSTAR) – Prolific actor Udo Kier, who appeared in hundreds of film and TV roles during his nearly six-decade career, has died at the age of 81, according to his family and friends.

Kier’s partner Delbert McBride confirmed Kier’s passing to Variety on Sunday. Photographer Michael Childers and filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, the latter of who directed Kier in the film “Critical Mass,” also reported his death on social media.

“A true original … incredible actor … incredible personality,” Olen Ray wrote, in part, in a Facebook tribute to Kier. “He had an amazing body of work, a legion of fans and was unique in every possible way.”

Childers, on Facebook, said Kier died at a hospital in Palm Desert, California. A cause of death was not immediately made public.

Udo Kier arrives at the 37th Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday, March 6, 2022, in Santa Monica, California. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Kier, who was born in Cologne, Germany, began his career acting in films and shorts in Europe. He attracted the attention of filmmaker Paul Morrissey in the early ‘70s, and starred as Victor Frankenstein and Count Dracula in Morrisey’s “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula,” respectively. He went to appear in films including “Story of O” and “Suspiria” (1977), and eventually became a frequent collaborator of Lars Von Trier (“Melancholia,” “Medea,” “Europa”). But Kier perhaps became a more familiar face to U.S. audiences after his turn in 1991’s “My Own Private Idaho.”

“I was in Berlin and a young director comes to me and says, ‘Hello, my name is Gus Van Sant. I have a movie I did for $20,000, but my next movie is going to be a bigger movie, and I want you to play,’” Kier remembered in a 2022 interview filmed during the Locarno Film Festival. “And then I heard it was going to be Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, so I did my first American film.”

Over the next several decades, Kier has been seen in films including “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “Blade,” “Armageddon” and the 2021 film “Swan Song,” for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

In an interview with Slant upon the release of “Swan Song,” Kier, who never received any formal acting training, explained that he’d like to be remembered as a “lucky man who got wonderful opportunities in film.”

“I want to be remembered that I had a good time and that I did comedies and drama and thrillers and gay hairdressers — everything, so why not?” he told the outlet.