The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September, who infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine others hostage. Black September called the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Black September commander was Luttif Afif, who was also their negotiator. West German neo-Nazis gave the group logistical assistance.
Peter Michael Falk was an American film and television actor, comedian, singer and television director and producer. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo on the NBC/ABC series Columbo, for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival is one of the oldest in the world and has become Central and Eastern Europe's leading film event.
William Franklin Holden was an American actor and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film Stalag 17 (1953) and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the television miniseries The Blue Knight (1973). Holden starred in some of Hollywood's most popular and critically acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), Picnic (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969) and Network (1976). He was named one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" six times, and appeared as 25th on the American Film Institute's list of 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema.
Die Hard 2 is a 1990 American action thriller film directed by Renny Harlin, written by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson, co-produced by Joel Silver, and starring Bruce Willis as John McClane alongside Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, Art Evans, William Atherton, Franco Nero, Dennis Franz, Fred Thompson, John Amos, and Reginald VelJohnson. The second installment in the Die Hard film series, the film was released on July 4, 1990, in the United States.
Jesus of Nazareth is a 1977 British-Italian epic film and television drama serial directed by Franco Zeffirelli and co-written by Zeffirelli, Anthony Burgess and Suso Cecchi d'Amico, which dramatizes the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It stars Robert Powell as Jesus, and features an all-star ensemble cast of renowned actors, including eight who had won or would go on to win Academy Awards: Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Rod Steiger, James Earl Jones and Peter Ustinov.
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German retired film actor, painter and author, who also appeared in numerous English-language films since the 1980s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Shine. In 2011, he was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear.
Paul Lawrence Smith was an American-Israeli actor and director. Burly, bearded and imposing, he appeared in feature films and occasionally on television since the 1960s, generally playing "heavies" and bad guys. His most notable roles include Hamidou, the vicious prison guard in Midnight Express (1978), Bluto in Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), Gideon in the ABC miniseries Masada (1981), Glossu "Beast" Rabban in David Lynch's Dune (1984) and Falkon in Red Sonja (1985). He was most frequently credited as Paul Smith or Paul L. Smith, but was also billed as P. L. Smith and Paul Lawrence Smith.
Munich is a 2005 epic historical drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, co-written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. It is based on the 1984 book Vengeance by George Jonas, an account of Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre.
Luttif Afif was a Palestinian terrorist. He commanded the eight-member attack team that carried out the Munich massacre, an invasion of the Munich Olympic Village on 5 September 1972. During the incident, nine members of Israel's Olympic team were taken hostage after two others, who had offered resistance, were shot dead. Afif was the chief negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians, who were members of the Black September offshoot of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. Afif and four of his compatriots were later killed by German snipers at Fürstenfeldbruck air base outside Munich.
Siegfried Rauch was a German film and television actor. In a career spanning over 60 years, he appeared in several international film productions and had leading roles in numerous German television productions.
Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 is a 2001 religious science fiction-adventure film, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and starring Michael York, Michael Biehn, Diane Venora, R. Lee Ermey, Udo Kier and Franco Nero. It is a follow-up to the 1999 film The Omega Code, serving as part prequel and part alternate retelling of the first film. It has a significantly larger budget than its predecessor. Lead actor York detailed the making of the film in a journal which he then published in book form, titled Dispatches from Armageddon.
Keoma is a 1976 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Franco Nero. It is frequently regarded as one of the better 'twilight' Spaghetti Westerns, being one of the last films of its genre, and is known for its incorporation of newer cinematic techniques of the time and its vocal soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis.
Hitch-Hike, also known as Death Drive is an Italian crime film directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile. The film stars Franco Nero and Corinne Cléry as a couple in a troubled marriage, and David Hess as a fugitive who takes them hostage. The musical score was written by Ennio Morricone. The film is based on Peter Kane's novel The Violence and the Fury.
Harald Leipnitz was a German actor, who was born in Wuppertal and died in Munich of lung cancer.
Three Faces East is a 1930 American Pre-Code film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Constance Bennett and Erich von Stroheim. Produced by Daryl Zanuck and released by Warner Brothers it is based on a 1918 Broadway play about World War I spies, Three Faces East, by Anthony Paul Kelly. It was filmed as a silent in 1926. A later remake in 1940 starred Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay was titled British Intelligence.
Falk Harnack was a German director and screenwriter. During Germany's Nazi era, he was also active with the German Resistance and toward the end of World War II, the partisans in Greece. Harnack was from a family of scholars, artists and scientists, several of whom were active in the anti-Nazi Resistance and paid with their lives.
Hartmut Reck was a German television and film actor. He also appeared in the American-produced epic film, The Longest Day. He also acted in the German film dubbing industry, dubbing into German the voices of Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Peter Graves, Patrick Stewart, Franco Nero, Terence Hill and others.
Anton Franz Edthofer was an Austrian actor.
Anneliese Graes was a chief detective (1951–1991) from Essen, Germany, who acted as mediator between German officials and Black September terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games after eight Black September terrorists broke into the Israeli Olympic delegation building at 31 Connollystrasse, taking eleven of the Israeli delegation hostage during the early hours of 5 September 1972.
