His life began in chaos, the kind that shapes a person long before they understand it. He was born in Cologne during the closing months of World War II, arriving just hours before the hospital was obliterated in an air raid. He survived his first day on earth by chance alone, carried into the world through fire and uncertainty. That kind of beginning leaves a mark. It sets the tone for a life built on grit, imagination, and an instinctive ability to adapt.
Raised by a single mother struggling to keep food on the table, he grew up with more questions than answers. He later learned that the man his mother loved had another family, a truth that shattered whatever sense of stability remained. But instead of hardening him, those early fractures pushed him inward. He found comfort in daydreams, in stories, in noticing the tiny quirks of human behavior others overlooked. What started as a way to escape hardship slowly became the quiet engine of his creative genius.
By the time he was a young man, he knew he needed a new environment—somewhere with possibilities, somewhere not defined by everything he lacked. He moved to London to study English, working small jobs and wandering the city when the loneliness crept in. Acting wasn’t even on his radar until a stranger in a café made an offhand comment that shifted his entire path. Something about the way he held himself, the stranger said, looked like someone who belonged on a stage. It sounded absurd at the time, but the idea took root. Within months, he was auditioning, learning, experimenting, and discovering a part of himself he hadn’t known existed.
Continue reading next page…