Wolfgang Petersen, the talented German director behind the memorable likes of Das Boot, In The Line Of Fire, The NeverEnding Story and The Perfect Storm, has died. He was 81.
Petersen grew up in Germany as it emerged from World War II and turned to movies as his main moral compass. He attended Hamburg's Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums between 1953 and 1960. After graduation, he directed plays at Hamburg’s Ernst Deutsch Theater.
In 1966, he attended Berlin's Film and Television Academy, which led him to start his screen career directing TV movies. Working on German TV series Tatort, he met and directed actor Jurgen Prochnow, who became a creative collaborator and starred as the U-boat captain in what is one of Petersen's most famous movies – 1981's Das Boot.
The director's first film was 1974 psychological thriller One Or The Other Of Us, which also starred Prochnow. He followed that with Die Konsequenz, an adaptation of Alexander Ziegler’s autobiographical novel about homosexual love, which was controversial enough that one network refused to show it on TV.
Das Boot launched him to the world and Hollywood came calling. He made fantasy adventure The NeverEnding Story, which led to a wider career.
Highlights included the likes of Enemy Mine, Air Force One, In The Line Of Fire, Outbreak, The Perfect Storm, Troy and Poseidon, which proved to be his last film for American companies, though he returned to Germany to remake his 1976 TV movie Vier Gegen Die Bank.
Petersen is survived by his second wife, Maria-Antoinette Borgel, and son Daniel Petersen, a writer-director.