A face known to viewers of the German series has just passed away.
Fritz Wepper died in his sleep at the age of 82, as confirmed by his family on the
RTBF
website .
Between 1974 and 1998, he played Inspector Derrick
's deputy
.
A role held for 24 years and 281 episodes.
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TV program this evening: our selection of the day
Fritz Wepper lost his father very young, at the age of four, who went to fight in Poland during the Second World War.
He appeared on stage for the first time at the age of eleven in an adaptation of
Peter Pan
.
Three Rooms in Manhattan, Cabaret, The Last Fight
He took his first steps in the cinema in 1959 in
The Bridge
, directed by Berhard Wicki.
The scenario takes place in April 1945. A group of schoolchildren are tasked by the routed German army with protecting a bridge before the imminent arrival of American soldiers.
He then continued with
Three Rooms in Manhattan
,
Cabaret
with Liza Minnelli and
Le Dernier Combat
by Luc Besson.
In 1969, he encountered the role of his life, that of Inspector Harry Klein.
First in the series
Der Kommissar
, unpublished in France.
The show was broadcast until 1976 on the German channel ZDF.
It is this same character who lends a hand to Derrick, in the guise of Horst Tappert, a few years later.
The two actors had already appeared opposite each other in 1968 in
The Man with the Glass Eye
, a detective fiction.
After Derrick
After the end of
Inspector Derrick
, Fritz Wepper plays a psychiatrist in a new series,
Murder in High Society
.
Still in the police register, the character investigates with his daughter.
For the anecdote, it is really his daughter, Sophie Wepper, who gives him the answer.
In 2021, Fritz Wepper reveals that he has skin cancer.
An illness that he overcame the following year after extensive treatments.
In France the actor appeared in “Touche pas à mon poste” to surprise Camille Combal who at the time regularly parodied the series
Inspector Derrick
in the C8 talk show.