Bernhard Wicki

Bernhard Wicki (October 28, 1919-January 5, 2000) was an Austrian actor and filmmaker. He is best known for directing The Bridge, co-directing the war epic The Longest Day, and his performances in the films La Notte, Crime and Passion, and The Left-Handed Woman.

Wicki was born October 28, 1919, to Swiss-Hungarian parents in St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria. He held Swiss nationality throughout his life. Wicki grew up in Vienna and later attended the Reinhardt drama school and the Berlin state drama school under famed German actor Gustaf Gründgens. In the early 1940s, Wicki was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for his affiliation with a communist organization. Wicki was released from Sachsenhausen after ten months, thanks to Grundgens's help.

Wicki spent his early post-war years as an actor, working in theaters in Munich, Salzburg, Zurich, and Basel. He made his on-screen debut in 1950 and most notably starred in Helmut Kutner's Last Bridge, which brought him the attention of Hollywood. Wicki rose to prominence as a director with the critically acclaimed The Bridge, a 1959 antiwar film about a group of students who defend a bridge in the final days of World War II. The success of the movie led him to direct, along with Ken Annakin and Andrew Marton, The Longest Day, a 1962 war epic starring John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and Henry Fonda.

In 1964, Wicki directed an adaptation of Friedrich Duerrenmatt's play The Visit, starring Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn. The film was poorly received in the United States, and soon after, Wicki moved back to Germany. He continued to direct and act, including a small role in Wim Wenders's award-winning film Paris, Texas, until 1986, when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Wicki's last film, The Spider's Web, was released in 1989.

Wicki died on January 5, 2000, in his home in Munich, due to heart failure after battling a long illness. He was eighty years old.