Actor Rolf Becker died in Hamburg at the age of 90

This is his everyday life when Rolf Becker appears on stage for the first time at the age of nine. His first role was in the play “De Wett” (The Bet), and later he reenacted “The Third Man” with friends in a bombed-out apartment.

“For me, acting was an escape from a reality that I found difficult to cope with,” said Becker. Now the popular actor (“In All Friendship”) has died in Hamburg at the age of 90. The Hamburg resident died on Friday surrounded by his family in a Hamburg hospice, as St. Pauli pastor Sieghard Wilm confirmed to the German Press Agency. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) first reported.

The theater became a refuge

The theater became a kind of refuge for him. “When I was 16, it was clear to me: You were going to the theater!” Becker recalled in the dpa interview on his 80th birthday. The rebellious young man finances his studies at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich as a stage technician.

Becker began his theater career with small roles at the Munich Kammerspiele. After stints in Darmstadt and Ulm, he moved to the Bremen Theater in 1963. He also staged here until he was dismissed without notice in 1969. “We even interrupted an operetta to protest against the emergency laws,” he remembers of the wild time of student protests.

Roles with social relevance

After engagements at the Hamburger Schauspielhaus and the Thalia Theater, Becker quickly became one of the most sought-after theater actors and also made a career in television and film (“Trenck” series, 1971, “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum”, 1976). He chose his roles based on whether they had social relevance. “Where are the topics that show what was and thus also raise awareness for what can come?” is how the Hamburg native with the distinctive voice and bright blue eyes behind the rimless glasses described his selection criteria.

The role of “Everyman”, which Becker played from 1997 to 2004 in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt, fit in well with this. Becker most recently became known to an audience of millions in the popular ARD doctor series “In aller Friendship”, where he played the good-natured pensioner Otto Stein alongside Ursula Karusseit (1939-2019) since 2006.

Talent passed on to Ben and Meret Becker

Becker passed on his acting talent to his children Ben and Meret Becker from his marriage to actress Monika Hansen. He was also in front of the camera with both of them. In the film “A Song of Love and Death – Gloomy Sunday” (1998), Ben played a young SS officer, Becker the old one. With Meret he made the film “Heinrich der Säger” (2000), in which he played a station master who rebels against his employer.

Since 1980, Rolf Becker has been married to the actress Sylvia Wempner, with whom he has two sons, and was later joined by his adopted son Anton, who starred in the ARD drama “Zappelphilipp”.

Becker has also been politically and socially active for years – together with his wife, for example, he campaigned for refugees all over the world. “I am a child of the Second World War,” he said of his motivations. He saw how people had to flee from the Nazis.

In the 1970s, the trade unionist supported a radio station in Nicaragua, and in the 1990s he demonstrated against NATO attacks in the former Yugoslavia, which also earned him severe criticism. Becker was also tireless in his efforts to prevent the Nazi past from being forgotten