Fassbinder, Rainer Werner (1945-1982)

Fassbinder, Rainer Werner

DIRECTOR, WRITER (GERMANY)

BORN 31 May 1945, Bad Wörishofen, Bayern - DIED 10 Jun 1982, München, Bayern
CAUSE OF DEATH overdose of cocaine and pills
GRAVE LOCATION München, Bayern: Friedhof Bogenhausen (1-4-2)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria three weeks the Germans surrendered to the Americans. His parents divorced when he was six and his mother Liselotte Pampeit raised him. His youth was difficult and when he was fifteen he ran away to Cologne to live with his father. He lived there for several years and started visiting gay bars.

In 1963 he returned to Munich, where he studied theatre at the Fridl-Leonhard Studio (1964-1966). There he met Hanna Schygulla, who would appear in many of his movies. His lover Christoph Roser financed his first movies and in 1967 he became the leader of the action-theater in Munich and it's successor, the Anti-Theater.

He directed and produced his movies and by the mid seventies he was famous and had won several prizes at the important festivals. He had relationships with women as well as men. One of his female lovers was Irm Hermann, a secretary that was turned into an actress by Fassbinder and appeared in many of his movies. In 1971 he had married the actress Ingrid Caven, who later stated that he was a homosexual who also needed a woman. The marriage lasted only two years but afterwards they remained friends. "In a Year with Thirteen Moons" is about the suicide of his lover Armin Meier.

Fassbinder suffered from alcoholism and drug abuse when he made his last movie "Querelle" in 1982. When one day in June, 1982 Juliane Lorenz, his lover since 1978, came to his appartment she found him dead on his bed with a cigarette between his lips.

Related persons
• directed Desny, Ivan
• directed Jacobsson, Ulla
• directed Maybach, Christiane
• cooperated with Valentin, Barbara

Images

The grave of Werner Fassbinder at the Bogenhausener Friedhof, Munich.
Picture by Androom (24 Aug 1996)